Golden Arrows
by Sanae
Summary: How did Kyosuke find all sixteen members of the Golden Arrows? *Extra Stage from my Programmed Lives Series*
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Initial D, Shigeno-sensei and the Kodansha Publishing Company do.

The Kizuna Ethridge name and character belongs to fellow Initial D fanfic author SouthSideSlider.

**Golden Arrows**

_Prologue_

Goose Creek City, South Carolina, USA – February 2021

Just like every Friday evening, eighteen year old Kizuna Ethridge was at the repairs shop owned by her forty five year old Uncle Josh. He was the younger brother of her father Kenneth and while both siblings had been heavily involved in motorsports, Josh suddenly retired when Kenneth died in a horrific crash nearly fifteen years ago.

'What do you think?' the girl asked him looking at the engine they had in front of them. They both had their arms crossed and they were staring at the thing a bit like a couple of doctors confronted with an ailing patient.

'You want me to be honest?' her uncle asked her.

'Of course,' she replied glancing at him with a frown on her grease smudged face.

'I think,' Josh started, 'that it's too bad that a young girl like you spends her Friday evenings with an old man like me worrying about how we can salvage this engine.'

'Uncle Jo…'

'Kizu,' he interrupted her, 'you know I love having you around and that you're very useful more often than not but, you're eighteen and you've just graduated from high school, you should be having the time of your life with your girlfriends.'

'What girlfriends?' she challenged him, raising her eyebrows.

'Er…'

'Look,' she said, 'I know that if I made an effort I could try and enjoy the company of Cheryl and the rest of her gang of cheerleaders but, to be honest, you know I've never really been into any of the stuff they talk about. Seriously, sometimes it seems like they're speaking in a different language.'

'Kizu…' he started again.

'Besides,' she continued, 'what's the point of trying to make friends if I might be leaving soon?'

Uncle Josh considered this briefly and, nodding a couple of times, he returned his attention to the engine so that he could buy himself time to formulate what he wanted to say next. Just like the girl she had next to him, he'd never been exceptionally good at dealing with this kind of things.

'Kizu,' he finally tried, 'I get what you're saying but, make me a promise, will you?'

'Sure,' Kizuna said.

'Use this chance to try and make new friends,' he told her, 'you know your mum is worried about you.'

'Alright, I'll do my best,' Kizuna promised, 'speaking of mum: she hasn't talked to you about, you know...'

'Yes,' Josh replied, 'she's very happy about it. She thinks it's the chance you need to get out of here and see a bit of the world so don't worry about her; or me for that matter. Even if you go to Antarctica you'll always have a home here with us, you know that, right?'

'Of course,' the girl replied.

Kizuna felt the usual knot tying her throat while she thought of leaving the beautiful southern town where she had grown up for most of her life. She was understandably excited about the prospect of a new life but, the very thought of going out there on her own scared her so much she had not slept properly in weeks.

Shaking the feeling off, she armed herself with a wrench and, following her uncle's instructions, they started disassembling the engine so that they could then decide if there was a way to get the engine of that poor 1994 red Camaro running ever again.

Later on that evening, Kizuna went home to find her mother in the kitchen working on one of her latest recipes. Rather tall for Japanese standards, Salina Ethridge was also a little more outspoken than her fellow countrywomen and, seeing her daughter standing there with her jeans and jumper full of grease, dirt and only goodness knew what else had her shouting in no time at all:

'YOU, SHOWER, NOW.'

Kizuna tried to repress a chuckle while she ran out of the kitchen. She then walked up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, on her way to the bathroom. Once there, she took her clothes off and, catching her own reflection on the mirror, she realised that she did look rather bad.

'Oh wow,' she gasped.

Stepping onto the shower plate, she spent the next few minutes scrubbing until the water became clear once again. She then dried herself and covered her wet hair with a thick white towel thinking that she might do something about it later.

Clean and pyjama clad, she returned to the kitchen.

'Mum…' she started.

'Kizuna,' her mother interrupted her pulling a white envelope out of the front pocket of her apron, 'this came for you this morning,' she then added looking at her daughter with a smile on her still youthful face.

'Oh,' was all that the girl could say.

'You want me to open it?' Salina asked her.

'No,' Kizuna replied, 'er…I…'

'Let's sit down,' her mother proposed and, taking her by her arm, the two women made their way to the living room. There, they sat down on the plush dark brown settee and only then she gave the envelope to her daughter, frowning a little when she noticed the way Kizuna's hands were shaking.

'Okay,' the girl said, 'here we go.'

She opened the envelope and in those few moments she considered all the effort she'd put into studying, all the sacrifices she'd had to do in order to follow her late father's motto: always chase your dreams no matter how impossible they might seem. Now, her entire life depended on what this single sheet of paper said.

'Kizuna?' she heard her mother say.

'Yeah,' the girl said absentmindedly.

Gathering all the courage she needed, she started reading the letter. She read it twice just in case she missed something, after all, it was written in the most formal register of the Japanese language and some of those kanji were awfully difficult to understand. Despite that, she still understood the general message.

'Mum…' she breathed.

'Are you…'

The poor woman never finished the sentence because right at that instant, her daughter engulfed her in the mother of all the bear-like hugs. Kizuna felt some tears of joy rolling down her cheeks while she started laughing in an almost hysterical manner. If she hadn't been hugging her mother, she was sure she would have skipped around the house like a frigging kangaroo.

'Kizuna?' her mother asked.

'I'm in,' the girl replied pulling herself away, 'Mum, I'm in! I made it!'

Salina smiled at her with one of her motherly smiles and, cupping her daughter's face with both of her tiny hands, she nodded once before the two of them hugged again. This time it was her turn to start crying.

'Mum,' Kizuna said all of sudden, 'this is still okay with you, right?'

'Of course,' Salina hurried to say.

'I mean,' the girl continued, 'I'll be gone for nearly four years and…'

'Honey,' Salina interrupted her, 'you've worked very hard to get in the Maebashi Institute of Technology. I can't possibly become a hindrance to you now. You need to go; we'll be here for you no matter what, okay?'

'That's what Uncle Josh said,' Kizuna confessed with a small voice.

'Your uncle has always been a wise man,' Salina said looking very serious.

'So,' Kizuna said, 'I'm really going to Japan.'

'It looks like it,' Salina replied, her smile returning to her face.

'Wow,' the girl gasped, 'I have so much stuff to do now!'

The mother laughed softly at her daughter's panicked expression but, in her mind, she had already started making a list of things which she would need to do to send her only daughter away for college. She also hoped that by keeping herself busy enough, she would not have time to think that the day had finally come and her baby was leaving the nest.

Two weeks later, Kizuna's room was a mess: books, magazines, clothes and toiletries were spread everywhere and a couple of rather large suitcases were placed on top of her bed. She had never been exceptionally good at packing and things got a whole lot more complicated since she had to be selective as to what to take with her but pack enough so that she wouldn't need to buy too much stuff in Japan.

'Having problems, I see,' she heard her uncle say.

She looked at the door and, shaking her head, she passed a hand over her face and, giving up, sat down on the bit of the bed which wasn't occupied by the suitcases.

'I don't know what to take with me,' she complained, 'I just want to pack so much stuff but I…'

'Hey,' Josh said, 'just take what you think you'll need in the first month you'll be there. The rest, you can either buy it there or we can send it to you from here.'

'All the way to Japan?' Kizuna said, 'it'd cost a fortune!'

'Not really,' Josh said, 'if you have the right contacts in the shipping industry.'

'Uncle Josh…'

'Don't worry about it, okay?' he interrupted her, 'now, why don't you finish packing, your mother has cooked a lovely dinner for us and you know how she gets if the food gets cold.'

'Yeah,' Kizuna said smiling.

'Ah,' Josh said, 'before I forget, here's my going-to-college present.'

He had a brown envelope with him of the kind used to put money in. Kizuna was about to protest when her uncle shoved it into her hands and, making a gesture with his head, he told her to go ahead and open it. She did and, inside, instead of banknotes, she found a piece of paper. Written on it she saw a name and an address from some town called Shibukawa.

'What's this?' she asked.

'You'll see,' Josh said, 'just make sure you go to this address as soon as you get settled at the dorm.'

'But what's in there?' she insisted.

'It's a surprise,' Josh said, 'but don't worry: you only have to wait for a couple of days.'

'Yeah but…'

She couldn't finish the sentence because, right at that moment, Salina showed up with her two passports, the dark blue American and the burgundy Japanese one, and the plane e-ticket that she had just printed out. Shocked by the mayhem which reigned in her daughter's room, she asked:

'You haven't finished yet?'

'Er…'

'Oh,' she complained, 'I'll help you.'

Following Salina's precise instructions, Kizuna found herself closing the two suitcases less than half an hour later and, to her surprise, she saw that she had managed to pack a whole lot more than she originally expected. Mostly thanks to the fact that her mother seemed to use a military-like style of packing.

Less than twelve hours later the three of them made their way towards the United Airlines check-in counter and, within just a few minutes, she saw the two suitcases leaving through the carrying belt. That, more than anything else, made her realise that it was happening: she really was leaving to Japan.

'Call us the minute you get to the dorm,' Salina ordered her.

'I will,' Kizuna said.

'Be careful,' Uncle Josh said, 'but have fun, okay?'

'I will,' Kizuna repeated.

She could tell that her mother was about to start crying and, since she didn't think she could cope with that without bursting into tears herself, she decided to give them both a bear-like hug and, before she could give herself time to think about what she was doing, she grabbed her backpack and, saying a quick 'I love you' to the two people who had raised her, she walked to security so that she could go to the boarding gate.

_To be continued…_


	2. Chapter One

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter One_

Despite being in the middle of the morning rush hour, neither of the two train rides it took Kizuna to get from Narita Airport to Maebashi were unbearable and the girl was impressed enough by the efficiency of the Japanese Railway System to start thinking that she could, after all, survive living in Japan without having her own means of transportation.

Not that she had many other options, the girl thought while she got off the train at Maebashi lugging the two heavy suitcases she had with her the best way she could. While her many part time jobs had made sure she had plenty of money to get by, there was no way she could afford buying a car.

Leaving the station, she quickly found a taxi.

'Where to?' the driver asked her.

'Maebashi Institute of Technology,' Kizuna replied feeling, once again, grateful that her mother had insisted that she was as fluent in Japanese as she was in English. She did wonder if her accent sounded weird to the driver but since the taxi started moving without any problems, she guessed that it was alright.

The ride was a short one and, very soon, they arrived at the college entrance from which she saw the set of buildings which housed the classrooms, laboratories and administration offices. She also saw a smaller redbrick building with a large sign announcing that it was the college's library. Kizuna made a mental note to visit it as soon as possible.

While on her way to the Admission Offices, she noticed that the campus was almost devoid of students. It was to be expected, after all, they were in between semesters and most people were probably home enjoying the holidays before the start of the new academic year. At the reception desk, she found a chubby middle aged woman who was so bored that she smiled happily when she saw Kizuna there.

'Hello there,' the lady said.

'Hi,' Kizuna said timidly, 'I'm a new student,' she added producing the admittance form they had sent her along with the letter, 'I know I'm a little early but…'

'No worries dear,' the woman said still smiling at her. She took the form and, taking a quick look at her name, she busied herself with her computer. Within just a few minutes, she produced a full welcome kit: a brand new ID complete with the photo Kizuna had sent along with her initial application, a copy of the student book which contained the college regulations and, what was more important, the key to her room at the dorms, 'the building isn't far,' the lady explained.

'I know,' Kizuna said, 'I printed out a map of the campus, just in case.'

'Well done,' the lady praised, 'now, if you need anything else, just let us know, okay?'

'Thank you,' Kizuna replied bowing her head slightly.

'No problems,' the woman said, 'and welcome to the Maebashi Institute of Technology.'

Kizuna smiled and, taking all the documents she'd just been given, she pocketed the key to her room. Shortly after that she was again lugging her suitcases on her way to the building where the dorms for the female students were. It wasn't a big place: if the figures on the website were accurate, there were only fifty rooms in it and, right now, there wasn't a single student in sight.

All the better, she thought, this way she'd have time to get used to the place.

Thankfully, her room was in the ground floor and finding it was a very simple matter. She was also pleased to see that it was a single room and that it looked like most of the furniture there was fairly new making it look like the sort of accommodation one could expect from a posh hotel.

She even had bedside lamp which matched the one hanging from the ceiling, the window also had a nice view of the campus and its greenery but the best part was the desk: it was large enough to make her laptop look ridiculously small and there was an empty bookcase so that she could have all her books in display.

Kizuna sat down on the chair in front of it finding it quite comfortable and, for a while, she just sat there, taking her time to become familiar with the room where she would spend the next four years. Then, remembering that she had quite a few things on top of her to-do list, she got back up.

Grabbing her backpack, she made sure she had her ID with her as well as they room's key and, locking the door behind her, she walked down the corridor towards the payphone she'd seen when coming in. Dialling her home's number, she waited until her mother picked up the phone:

'Hello?'

'Hi mum, you weren't sleeping, were you?' Kizuna asked trying to calculate the time difference.

'No, no,' her mother replied, 'it's only nine pm,' she explained then, taking a long breath, she said all in one go, 'tell me, did you have a good flight? How's Japan? And the dorm? And…'

'Mum,' Kizuna laughed softly, 'I'm fine, the flight was as good as it can be and Japan is great. The room at the dorm is perfect too. How are you?'

'I'm fine,' Salina replied more calmly, 'feeling a little lonely,' she confessed, 'but I'll be fine, so don't worry about me, okay?'

'Likewise,' Kizuna replied, 'I'm very happy to be here so please, don't worry about me either, okay?'

'I can't do that, honey,' Salina said, 'I'm your mother.'

Kizuna shook her head and said:

'Listen mum, I have to go now but I'll call you at least once a week, I promise.'

'Okay,' Salina replied, 'take care of yourself and make sure you eat properly, okay?'

'Of course,' Kizuna promised, 'say hi to Uncle Josh from me.'

'I will,' Salina said, 'I love you.'

'Me too,' Kizuna said. Then, slowly, she replaced the receiver and, taking a couple of steadying breaths, she decided that she was ready to start her new life in Maebashi. To begin with, she needed to see if she could get a mobile phone and was lucky enough to see a DoCoMo shop just outside the campus where she bought one of the cheapest sets making sure it was enabled to make intercontinental calls.

With that out of the way, she put her hand into her pocket and pulled out the piece of paper her uncle had given her as her going-away present. She stared at it for a few moments while standing in the middle of the street. She bit her lower lip and checked the time: it was nearly midday.

'Alright,' she muttered.

She returned to her room and, after putting her new phone to charge its battery she went out again and started walking back towards the station, trying to pay attention to the map she had as well as taking note of useful places she saw along the way such as the post office and a convenience store.

There, she bought herself a sandwich and was about to start eating it while she walked when she remembered that it was bad manners to do so in Japan. For this reason, she put it back in its plastic container and decided that she would eat it as soon as she could.

Once at the station, she checked a map they had on display to see exactly how far from Maebashi was the city of Shibukawa and, to Kizuna's surprise, she saw it was so close that there was a local bus service connecting both cities' stations.

Checking she had enough coins to pay for the fare, she walked towards the bus stop and, while she waited for it, she ate the sandwich as quickly as possible finishing it just as the bus arrived. She got onboard and, finding an empty seat, she started wondering about what she'd find at that address.

The ride to Shibukawa wasn't long enough for her to come up with an answer to that question and, very soon, the speaker announced that they had arrived at the Shibukawa railway station. Kizuna followed all three commuters who also got off at that stop and then she walked inside the train station hoping to find a city map in there.

'Excuse me,' she heard a man ask her.

'Yes?' Kizuna replied.

'Are you lost?' he asked.

Kizuna was about to freak out and leave when she realised that the man was wearing a uniform from the Japanese Railways and, as such, offering her assistance was merely part of his job. Because of this, she pulled the crumpled piece of paper and, showing it to him, she said:

'I need to go to this address; do you know where it is?'

'Ah, it's not far from here,' the man replied smiling at her, 'if you can wait a second, I'll draw you a map.'

'Oh,' she gasped, 'that's awfully nice of you, thank you.'

'You're welcome,' the man said.

Less than five minutes later, she had a very useful little map drawn on the back of the piece of paper where she had the address written and thanks to that finding the place was a piece of cake. The mysterious address revealed itself to be nothing but an ordinary looking old house which, at least, had the correct nametag:

SUZUKI

Kizuna debated with herself whether she could just show up at some stranger's house. She thought of how she would feel if she found some weird half-Japanese girl at her doorstep saying that she was there because her American uncle had told her to do so and realising just how bizarre that was, she turned round to leave.

'Who are you?' an old man asked her.

She'd been so absorbed in her own thoughts she hadn't even noticed his presence.

'Er…'

'What were you doing standing in front of my house?'

'Ah..'

'What's your name?'

The girl braced herself for the worst when she said:

'I'm Kizuna Ethridge.'

'Kizuna what?' the old man asked her. That made her realise that she had to get used to pronounce her English surname the Japanese way or people would never understand it. Because of this, she repeated:

'I'm Kizuna Ethridge.'

'Ethridge?' the old man asked almost as if he was talking to himself. He then frowned a little and Kizuna saw that he was deep in thought then, all of a sudden, his face lit in realisation and said, 'oh…I see! It's you!'

'Excuse me,' Kizuna ventured, 'are you Suzuki Masashi-san?'

'Yes,' the old man replied, 'that's me. Your uncle called me a couple of days ago telling me you'd come.'

'My uncle did?' Kizuna asked feeling her eyebrows shooting up in astonishment.

'Yes, yes, he speaks funny Japanese,' Suzuki-san commented with a smile, 'but come in, it's still cold today, you wouldn't think it's March already.'

'No,' Kizuna smiled, 'it's a lot colder than where I come from.'

'That's right,' Suzuki-san, 'you're from South California, right?'

'No,' the girl replied shaking her head once, 'I'm from South Carolina, it's an entirely different state.'

'Ah,' Suzuki-san, 'it all sounds the same to me.'

'Fair enough,' Kizuna replied.

She then followed the old man inside his house thinking that for some reason and after the awkward introduction time was over, she really liked this old man. He had to be well into his seventies yet the agile way in which he climbed the stairs on his way to the front door was worthy of admiration.

'Stay here, I won't be a tick,' he told her leaving her standing on the reception area.

Before she had the time to reply, he walked into his house and, just a few seconds later, he was back, carrying what looked like a metallic rectangular box with him. He handed it to her immediately and, shoving his feet back inside his shoes, he said:

'Come with me.'

Not even dreaming to argue with him, she practically jogged behind the old man and, soon enough she found herself walking around the house's perimeter and when they got to the back yard, she saw a huge barn-like construction built where the back yard was supposed to be. It had an open entrance from which she could see what had to be one of the largest collection of tools she had seen in her life.

'Wha…'

'I'll need a hand with this,' the old man announced.

Putting the small box inside one of her coat's pockets, she followed him inside and, once there, she saw something else which made her jaw fall open. Her brain hadn't even had the time to register what was happening when, from underneath a dusty sheet, she saw a dark grey Nissan 350Z.

'Oh my…'

'You like it?' Suzuki-san asked her.

'What…'

'It's yours,' the old man said.

'It's _what_?' Kizuna finally managed to ask.

'It's yours,' Suzuki-san repeated, 'well, in reality it was your father's. He bought it here a long time ago. Your uncle Josh had it shipped over a few weeks ago and asked me if I could keep it in my garage until you came to pick it up.'

'But…'

'It needs some work,' the old man continued, 'but nothing major, from what I saw when they brought it in, it just needs new tyres and we could do a good check up just to make sure everything's right but, for the rest, you could very well take it home with you right now.'

'Wait a minute,' Kizuna breathed.

She leant against a nearby column and, taking a few much needed calming breaths, she tried to start making sense of what was going on in there. Kizuna kept staring at the car as though as she half expected it to vanish and, when that didn't happen, she frowned in worry because, unless she was horribly mistaken, everything was real.

'Hey kiddo,' the Suzuki-san said, 'are you alright?'

'Eh?'

'You look kind of pale,' the old man observed.

'I…' Kizuna started then, pulling herself away from the column, she sighed and said, 'Suzuki-san, please I beg you to be honest with me: you're not joking, right? I mean, this isn't some sort of prank because I know my uncle Josh and…'

'I don't know your uncle Josh,' Suzuki-san replied with an affectionate smile, 'but I knew your father all the way back when he was still a half-baked racer trying to get your mother to take him seriously. He used to come to my repairs shop all the time to get his car fixed until he learned to do it himself.'

'I see…'

'There's a letter from him in that box I just gave you,' he informed her.

Kizuna took the metallic box back out of her pocket and, opening it, she saw that it contained two things: one a yellowing envelope with her name written on it and, on top of it, the key to the 350Z. With trembling hands, she pocketed it and, very carefully, she removed the letter from inside the box.

'I'll leave you to it,' Suzuki-san said, 'I've got to make a phone call anyway.'

The girl just nodded and, with a nearly religious reverence, she opened the envelope her father had sealed over fifteen years before. Kizuna found two sheets of paper inside it, one of them was an official looking document in Japanese; the other was a letter handwritten in English:

_Dear Kizu,_

_If you're reading this, it means that I was right when I felt like I needed to write this to you in case I wasn't there to tell you in person. I'm very sorry about it because, right now, there's nothing I want more than to see you become the beautiful and strong woman I know one day you'll be._

_Since I know that one day you'll want to move back to Japan and that you'll probably want to have your own car, I'll make sure you can find this one here with Suzuki-san. His mechanics skills are legendary and he's told me he'll be happy to help you make this Nissan the kind of car you'll want to drive. _

_The only thing we ask in exchange is for you to remember this: cars can be a lot of fun but they are very dangerous if you don't treat them with the respect they deserve so, never drive beyond your own abilities because knowing your limits it's also the fastest way to keep on improving. That's all the advice I can give you, the rest, it's best if you figure it out yourself. _

_I'll always love you, _

_Dad._

Kizuna realised she was crying when Suzuki-san came back but the old man was quick enough to pretend that nothing was wrong, giving the girl the time she needed to wipe the tears from her face and try to get some resemblance of composure.

'Come here,' the old man said.

She complied and, following him to the back of the enormous garage, she saw a trolley with four new tyres, a couple of cans of oil and several parts. This all seemed to have just arrived because, next to it, she saw the discarded boxes from a well known American shipping company.

'So,' she muttered, 'that's what Uncle Josh meant.'

'Regarding what?' Suzuki-san asked.

'He told me he had the "right contacts" in the shipping industry,' she replied.

'Oh,' the old man said, 'that's for sure. Shipping the car alone would cost a small fortune but he also had all of these things shipped over here even though it would have been cheaper to just buy them locally.'

'He said this was my going-to-college present,' Kizuna explained with a smile.

'That's one heck of a present,' Suzuki-san observed.

'I agree,' Kizuna said.

She still could not believe that her uncle would go through such pains in order to make sure she had her own ride even here in Japan. She could believe even less that the car had actually been her father's and, on top of it, it was a Japanese model so even the steering wheel was in the right side.

'So kiddo,' Suzuki-san said taking her out of her reverie, 'are you too tired from the trip to start working on your car? Your uncle said you're not bad when it comes to fixing stuff so, I'd really like to see if that's true.'

'Well…' she hesitated.

'Don't worry,' the old man said, 'I might be old but I can still help you a fair bit.'

'That'd be…,' she hesitated again then, smiling at Suzuki-san, she nodded once and said, 'I'm all hands and ears, please tell me what you need me to do and I'll be happy to do it.'

The old man smiled approvingly and, before she knew it, the two of them removed their jackets so that they could start working on the sixteen year old car. By the time the old man decided that they were done for the day, Kizuna had nearly forgotten that she was in Japan and, even more importantly, what she was there for.

'We'll continue tomorrow,' he said, 'if you're free, that is.'

'I am,' she hurried to reply, 'what time do you want me to be here?'

'Not before ten,' Suzuki-san replied, 'I like sleeping in.'

'Okay,' Kizuna accepted, 'I'll be here at eleven.'

'Good girl,' Suzuki-san said.

It took them nearly three full days of continued work before the old man was happy enough to let her get behind the wheel and, during said time, she was simply enthralled by the sheer amount of stuff he knew, not only about cars and racing but, he also gave her quite a good insight of what living in Gunma was like.

'I've lived here my whole life,' the man commented, 'and, personally, there isn't any other place I'd rather live in. Most of my friends live in this city and my wife's tomb is at the local cemetery so, I couldn't leave even if I wanted to.'

'I'm sorry to hear about that,' Kizuna said frowning a little.

'Oh,' Suzuki-san said, 'don't worry about it, it happened a while ago.'

Kizuna remained quiet unsure of what to say next when Suzuki-san shook his head once before he looked at her and, the smile returning to his heavily lined face, he pointed at the newly restored Nissan and said:

'So, you want to go for a drive?'

'Can I?' Kizuna asked a little stupidly.

'Well,' he replied, 'it's your car: you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.'

'I guess you're right,' she said then, she asked, 'is there any good road around Maebashi? I'd like to take it there tonight so I can get some practice, you see, I've never driven a car with the steering on the right side.'

'If you want a road,' he replied, 'you must go to the Route 62 as it goes around Mt Akagi.'

'Route 62?' she asked.

'Yes,' he confirmed, 'you will need to continue along Route 257 roughly half way through it to keep climbing up the mountain but you can't miss it. If you went there now, it'll be packed with tourists who want to visit the crater…'

'Crater?' Kizuna asked.

'Of course,' Suzuki-san said, 'Mt Akagi is a volcano; didn't you know that?'

'No, I didn't,' Kizuna replied honestly.

'Anyway,' the old man continued, 'if you want some peace and quiet to do some proper driving, wait until nine or ten in the evening. Anytime after that and it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll have the road to yourself.'

'Suzuki-san,' she said, 'you seem to know a whole lot about this kind of things…'

The man limited himself to give her the most cryptic smile ever.

'Alright,' she carried on, 'I'll probably park the car at the campus tonight, if that's okay with you.'

'Hey,' he said, 'you don't need to ask me permission, it is _your _car, do whatever you want.'

'Okay,' she smiled, 'thank you for everything Suzuki-san. I…I couldn't have done this without you.'

'You're welcome,' he said, 'and feel free to drop by whenever you want, it's been good having someone young to chat with and not those two nutters I always have to hang out with. Wait until I tell them about it, they'll be so jealous, especially that Yuuichi.'

'Alright,' she said with a benevolent smile, 'I better go now.'

'Okay,' he agreed, 'remember: keep at the left side of the road at all times, okay?'

'Yes,' Kizuna said. She then climbed behind the steering wheel of her Nissan and taking a deep breath, she turned the key in the ignition, for just a few moments, she just sat there enjoying the purr of the finely tuned engine. Kizuna had to give it to Suzuki-san: the man knew how to make a car sound as good as a Stradivarius.

Later on that night, she drove the 350Z up Route 62 for the first time ever. Because of that, she took her time to see what the road was like: taking each corner carefully and making sure she remembered to stay on the left while fighting the instinct which wanted her to get onto the right lane.

From there, as Suzuki-san said, she took the deviation to the Route 257 where she saw that the road became a lot curvier and steeper. Kizuna smiled seeing this and, deciding to push it a little, she pressed the accelerator noticing with immense pleasure that her Nissan, while old, was still powerful enough.

'This is fantastic,' she said to herself.

Not giving herself time to get emotional thinking about her father, she drove all the distance to what she saw was the summit and, once there, she turned round so that she could drive the car downhill. That revealed itself to be such a beautifully challenging experience that she kept on repeating the process until, two hours later, her arms and legs were too tired to carry on.

It was time for a break.

The girl stopped the car by some vending machines at the bottom of the pass and while she was busy selecting something to drink, she first heard then saw two sports cars obviously racing each other. She didn't have the time to see which model they were but she recognised the symbol at the back of one of them: they were two Mazda; one white and one yellow.

The former was tailing the latter and the two were driving up the pass with such mastery that it made Kizuna forget all about her thirst. For a few too short seconds, her attention was focused exclusively on the two cars and, as soon as they disappeared around a wide right-hander, the girl felt like she needed to know who the two drivers were and, if at all possible, meet up with them.

_To be continued…_


	3. Chapter Two

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Two_

The next morning, Kizuna parked her car just outside a confectionery shop in Shibukawa, remembering about the time when Suzuki-san had told her that the store produced the best manju in the whole of Japan, she stepped into the shop smelling the strong scent from the flour, rice powder and the red bean paste they used to make them.

'Hello,' Kizuna called.

Soon an old woman came to the counter from the back of the shop and, smiling at her, she said:

'Hello dear, what can I do for you?'

'Er…' Kizuna hesitated while she observed the rows of already made manju which were on display. She didn't know which flavour Suzuki-san liked the most and that made her frown a little, 'er…is it possible to have a box of mixed manju?'

'Of course,' the old woman said.

Five minutes later she had a huge box with every variety of manju. Happy with her purchase, she placed the box carefully on top of the passenger's seat and, walking around her car, she climbed behind the steering wheel and drove all the way to Suzuki-san's house.

Once there, she saw a very old Subaru Impreza parked outside.

Parking behind it, Kizuna stepped out of her car while taking her time to observe it noticing that, despite being old, the Subaru was kept in a pristine condition and it was also spotlessly clean. Whoever owned this vehicle, he surely knew how to take good care of it.

Taking the box of manju from her own car, she walked towards the entrance of the house and, ringing the bell, she waited for Suzuki-san to open up. A couple of seconds later, she saw him walking out of the door followed by another old man of his same venerable age.

'Oh,' Suzuki-san said, 'what a surprise! I wasn't…'

'Who's that?' the other old man asked him, Kizuna noticed he had a lopsided smile on his face.

'Come in,' Suzuki-san said opening the door and obviously ignoring his friend's question.

'Er…' Kizuna hesitated then, blushing a little, she presented him with the box and said, 'I thought of buying you something to, you know…'

'Oh!' Suzuki-san's friend exclaimed, 'Masashi, I've always known you were into younger girls but…'

'Bunta!' Suzuki-san protested, 'she's nothing like that!'

'Alright, alright,' the man named Bunta said, 'don't get all heated up, it's not a good thing at your age.'

'My age?' Suzuki-san protested again, 'I'm only three years older than you!'

Kizuna had to bit her lips to keep herself from laughing. She then realised that she was still holding the box and Suzuki-san didn't seem to remember about it anymore. For this reason, she cleared her throat and said:

'Well, I'm sure you're busy so…'

'Nonsense,' Suzuki-san's friend said, 'come in, come in.'

'Will you please stop acting as if this is your house?' Suzuki-san asked him.

Without waiting for an answer, he urged Kizuna into the house and, soon enough, the three of them were sitting on the couch of a western-like living room. The TV was on and it looked like the two men had been watching some baseball match together.

'Oh, you were busy after all,' she commented frowning a little.

'Don't worry,' Suzuki-san said and, to prove his point, he pressed the button on the remote to mute the TV.

'So', his friend said, 'who are you?'

'My name is Kizuna Esuridgi.'

'If you haven't gone senile already,' Suzuki-san added, 'you might remember about that American kid I told you about who used to come into my shop every now and then, his name was Kenneth but he liked being called Ken.'

'Ken?' he asked then, failing to make the connection, he shook his head.

'Anyway,' Suzuki-san said, 'this geezer is Fujiwara Bunta, he's one of my _oldest_ friends.'

'Nice to meet you Fujiwara-san,' Kizuna said trying to keep a straight face while watching Fujiwara-san's outraged one, 'Suzuki-san has been kind enough to help me with my car and…'

'Oh,' Fujiwara-san interrupted her, 'is he still able to do that?'

'Bunta!' Suzuki-san protested, 'I'm _still _a better mechanic than you are.'

Oh no, here we go again, Kizuna thought smiling to herself. Then, in order to prevent the conversation from degenerating into a brand new bickering session, she looked at Suzuki-san and said:

'The car felt fantastic last night.'

'I'm glad to hear it,' he observed.

'I wasn't on my own though,' she commented as casually as she could.

'Where were you?' Fujiwara-san asked.

'She went to Akagi,' Suzuki-san replied instead then, looking at her, he said, 'did you get in trouble?'

'No, no,' she reassured him quickly, 'it's just that I saw a couple of cars racing each other,' then, she gambled, 'they were two Mazda, one yellow and one white. You probably don't know of them, do you?'

'Two Mazda?' Fujiwara-san asked.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied keeping an even tone of voice, 'do you know them?'

'We do,' Suzuki-san replied.

'They belong to a couple of friends of my grandson,' Fujiwara-san commented, 'Takahashi…er…what are their names again?' he asked looking at his friend with a light frown on his lined forehead.

'Kyosuke and Seisuke,' Suzuki-san supplied, 'and don't pretend you don't know just to look cool.'

'The same surname,' Kizuna intervened before Fujiwara-san could retort to that, 'are they related?'

'Yes,' Suzuki-san replied, 'they're brothers. Kyosuke, the elder, has just founded his own team, isn't that right Bunta?'

'I think so,' he said then, with an amused smile, he asked, 'what? You want to be a street racer too?'

'Me?' Kizuna exclaimed then, shaking her head vigorously, she said, 'no, no, I was just…'

'She was curious,' Suzuki-san supplied, 'right?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'that's right. I was just curious, I…'

'So,' Fujiwara-san interrupted her clearly not buying it, 'if I were to tell you that one of them is having a race tomorrow night in Mt Myogi you would not care at all, would you?'

The girl knew the old man was challenging her.

'No,' she said, 'it doesn't matter to me.'

'Very well,' Fujiwara-san said, 'so if I tell you that the race starts at ten, you probably won't show up there.'

'No,' she repeated still set on feigning indifference.

'Alright,' Fujiwara-san finally said.

Kizuna didn't know how she made it out of the house as quickly as she did but she was sure that the two old men were definitely not convinced by her apparent lack of interest and now, while she drove back to Maebashi, she was very keen on finding out where that Mt Myogi was.

'Takahashi,' she muttered to herself, 'Kyosuke and Seisuke.'

At least she now understood one thing: the reason why the two drivers seemed to be so well in synch with each other was because they were brothers and judging from what she had saw the previous night, they had a lot of experience behind the steering wheel. Things were getting more and more interesting and she simply could not wait till the following day.

With nothing better to do, Kizuna decided to leave her car at the campus and, on foot, she started visiting the city of Maebashi and following the itinerary recommended by the official city guide, she went to the Observation Hall on the thirty second floor of the Prefecture Office. From there, she saw a breathtaking view of the entire city, including Mt Akagi and the roads she was slowly becoming familiar with.

She then moved to the Tosho-Gu shrine where she got an amulet for herself and then she prayed for her mother, her uncle Josh and, while she was at it, to keep those two funny old men healthy for many, many years. With that out of the way, she went on to see the Luna Park but she quickly decided that it was too noisy for her.

The day ended with a visit to the Maebashi Park where she spotted what she thought would be a great place to come and study when the days would get warmer. She then went on to the Water Park and spent a few moments observing the magnificent waterfall they had in there.

Kizuna was exhausted by the time she got back to her dorm and, after eating some snack her mother would totally disapprove, she had a quick bath, put her pyjama on and got herself in bed falling asleep almost the instant her head touched the pillow.

Saturday was the day in which she finally thought of unpacking. It had been nearly a whole week and she still lived out of one of the suitcases, the one containing her winter clothes. Deciding it wasn't practical to keep postponing it, she washed her face, got dressed with a simple pair of jeans and a jumper and after making her bed, she placed both suitcases on top of it.

Taking as long as humanly possible, she carefully placed every single one of her garments inside the relatively big closet and, with that done, she busied herself with her shoes smiling when she remembered her mother's horrified expression when her daughter had "only" taken six pairs of them.

'As if I'll need more than that,' she muttered to herself.

She then took her books and ordered them in the same alphabetical order she had them at home and, with that done too, she started with her toiletries. The whole process was completed only an hour after she started and, seeing as she didn't have anything else to do, she went to the convenience store and bought herself some of the stationery she would need once the classes started the following Monday.

On her way back, she noticed that the campus was slowly filling with students and, to her pleasure, she saw that the library's door was open. She ran towards her room and, leaving the two plastic bags at the entrance, she went back outside and made her way to the library.

It was every bit as beautiful as she thought it'd be: nice comfy seats, wide desks and the kind of quiet environment she needed in order to study. There were a couple of computer rooms from which one could consult the electronic catalogue and row after row of cases full of big, fat, old fashioned books.

It was love at the first sight.

Kizuna ended up spending most of the afternoon there and, by the time she went back to her room, not only she knew where Mt Myogi was but also, that there were quite a few other interesting passes she wanted to go to, including one called Irohazaka, the configuration of which more than intrigued her.

At long last, at around quarter to nine in the evening, she sat behind the steering wheel of her Nissan and, checking the map on her new mobile phone for one last time, she turned the V6 engine on and was finally on her way to see if she could meet with those Takahashi brothers.

The first thing she noticed as she approached the mountain was its jagged contours which were visible even at that time of the evening. She also saw that, as she got closer to the Route 196 that there were other, much newer cars driving that way too and, very slowly, she started realising where she was going:

An illegal street race.

Fighting the urge to turn the car round and drive as far away as possible from the mountain, she forced herself to press the accelerator and, soon enough, she reached the base of the pass where she saw an indecent amount of cars already parked there. Entering the car park, Kizuna quickly found a space for her Nissan and, climbing out of it, she started scanning the area.

'They're here!' she heard someone shout all of a sudden.

Locking the car's door as fast as she could, she tried to pay attention to what was happening around her and then she saw them: the two Mazda she'd seen in Mt Akagi were driving into the car park followed by a light blue Nismo tuned Nissan S18 and a dark red Honda Civic Type R.

She was so engrossed by this that she failed to see yet another car driving her way.

'Careful!' she heard someone shout at her.

She moved just in time to avoid being run over by a dark blue Mitsubishi X-3 and, leaning against her own car for support, Kizuna decided that spacing out while in the middle of a car park wasn't a wise thing to do.

'Are you okay?' the driver of the Mitsubishi asked.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'sorry, I wasn't paying attention.'

'Don't worry,' the guy said with a smile.

Kizuna returned the smile and then, the driver got his window back up and drove off. She saw that he was driving the car towards the two Mazda, stopping right next the white one. Only then she saw that the Mazda was a brand new RZ-1 and, by the looks of it, a lot of work had been put into tuning it.

She observed while the white Mazda and the dark blue Mitsubishi drove towards what she guessed was the official starting line of the course and then, she saw the driver of the yellow Mazda walking towards the window of his brother's car. She could not help but to notice that the guy was fairly tall one and had his spiky hair bleached blonde.

'He's so cool!' she heard a girl say.

That made her turn round and, right there, she saw a whole bunch of girls staring at the guy with dreamy expressions on their faces. Kizuna looked at him again and back at the girls and, speaking to the one closest to her, she asked:

'Who is he?'

'Who is he?' the girl repeated as if she were unable to believe her ears, 'you don't know him?'

'No,' she only half-lied.

'He's Takahashi Kyosuke,' the girl supplied giving herself a superior look, 'the one inside the white Mazda is his younger brother Seisuke and those two,' she added pointing at the light blue Nissan and the dark red Honda, 'are the other two members of the Golden Arrows.'

'The what?' Kizuna could not help but to ask.

'The Golden Arrows,' the girl repeated a tad impatiently, 'they're a new team and I've heard they're still looking for new members, mind you, they only want the best of the best. Kyosuke-san hasn't lost a race yet and I doubt he ever will.'

'Is he that good?' Kizuna asked her.

'Girls,' she said talking to her friends, 'this person here is asking if Kyosuke-san is a good racer.'

The girls there started laughing out loud, some of them shaking their heads in a mixture of disappointment and disbelief. One even glared cruelly at Kizuna clearly thinking that if she didn't know that much, she was entirely out of place. That made her remember the reason why she preferred to hang out with guys.

'Sorry,' she muttered before she walked away from the group of fangirls.

Shortly after, she saw that a few cars started driving up the road, one of them being the light blue Nissan which she'd seen parked next to Kyosuke's car and, judging by the increasing level of excitement, she knew that the race was probably about to start.

Making sure she was as close to the first line of watchers as possible, she waited with them until, a few moments before ten o'clock, a guy in his twenties, probably from the same team as the one driving the Mitsubishi, stepped in front of the two cars.

Then everyone went quiet and, at the GO, Kizuna saw the two cars taking off so fast that she felt her eyes widen with the shock while she observed the nearly perfect way in which the white RZ-1 surpassed the X-3 leaving it behind even before they took the first corner of the pass.

Not far from there, Kizuna saw Kyosuke talking to a couple of kids, one of them was a rather skinny boy with straight hair which looked like it could do with a haircut. The girl next to him was, in a few words, everything she wasn't: petite, extremely cute and so feminine that even the way she stood was girly.

She had no idea of who those two kids were but, judging by the familiarity in which they both spoke to Kyosuke, they had to be very good friends with him. At any rate, the two of them were way too young to be racers so Kizuna quickly dismissed them.

Instead, she started paying attention to what was being said around her so that she could hope to figure out what was going on in the race. She heard that the Mazda was way ahead of the Mitsubishi which, by the way, was driven by a local guy called Taro Nakazato who was also the leader of the team called Myogi Devils.

Kizuna found it impressive that Seisuke was so obviously outclassing him in his own home turf but, as one of the people there explained to her, both Takahashi brothers had trained intensively in most of the passes of the area so, in the end, it was only to be expected if Seisuke managed to win the race.

Then, all of a sudden, she heard some commotion coming from the people who were following the race by radio. She tried to strain her ears so that she would hear what had just happened when she heard:

'Oh no! Nakazato's ahead now…'

'What happened?' Kizuna could not help but to ask.

'No idea,' the guy replied frowning at her.

Feeling as restless as most of the people there, she spent the following minutes desperately trying to figure out what was happening when the guy received a phone call. He listened to it and, a smile appearing on his face, he told her:

'It's alright.'

'What?' Kizuna urged him, 'what's happened?'

'Seisuke-san just overtook him at the last corner,' the guy informed her, 'he's won his first race!'

'First race?' Kizuna asked sounding astonished, 'this was his _first_ race?'

'Yes,' the guy replied, 'didn't you know that when you came here tonight?'

'Er…'

'What's your name?' the guy asked her.

'I'm Kizuna, Kizuna Ethridge,' she replied.

'Oh,' the guy said, 'you're not from around here, are you?'

'No,' she replied, 'I'm from the US but my mother is Japanese.'

'Cool,' the guy said, 'I'm Izawa Daichi but I hate my first name so please call me Izawa.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said with a smile. She then heard Kyosuke shouting happily having just found out that his younger brother had won the race. A bunch of other people were celebrating the victory too, including the two kids she'd seen earlier. She also saw when the boy placed his hands onto the girl's tiny shoulders and, out of the blue, he kissed her making Kizuna look away as quickly as she could.

'He sure is bold,' she heard Izawa say.

'Yeah,' Kizuna agreed, 'a little too much.'

Izawa looked like he was going to say something else when Kizuna's phone started ringing. She pulled it out of her pocket and pressing the answer button, she walked away from the guy hoping he would not think of following her.

'Hello?' she said.

'Hey honey,' she heard her mother say, 'how are you?'

'I'm fine,' Kizuna replied, 'I was going to call you tomorrow.'

'What's all that noise?' Salina asked her, 'are you at a party?'

'More or less,' Kizuna replied, 'I'm here with a few people I just met.'

'That's excellent news, sweetie,' her mother said, 'I'm glad to hear you're already making friends.'

'Yeah,' Kizuna agreed feeling slightly guilty.

'I'll let you go then,' Salina said, 'go and have fun but do call me tomorrow, okay?'

'Sure,' Kizuna promised.

She felt horrible about the fact that her uncle had told her not to tell her mother about the car but she knew her mother would never approve of it if she ever thought of racing. As it was, while she watched Seisuke parking his white RZ-1 next to the yellow one, an idea started taking shape in Kizuna's brain.

The girl observed the two brothers sharing a one armed hug and she saw Seisuke talking to the two kids who were very obviously an item. He then exchanged a quick word with the leader of the Myogi Devils and, before she would have time to change her mind, Kizuna walked towards the group and asked:

'Sorry, am I interrupting?'

'No, what's up?' Kyosuke said looking at her in a way which made Kizuna feel a little nervous.

'I'm Kizuna Ethridge,' she said, 'I'm looking for Takahashi Kyosuke, the founder of the Golden Arrows, is that you?'

'Yes, that's me. What can I do for you?' Kyosuke asked her with a rather friendly smile.

'I just moved back to Japan from the US and I'm looking for a team who are open to welcome new members, I heard that you've just set yours up.'

'What do you drive?' Kyosuke asked.

'It's a very old car but…'

'Hey, our team doesn't have anything against old cars,' Kyosuke said reassuringly.

'Right, well, that's my baby over there,' she said pointing at her dark grey Nissan 350Z.

She saw Kyosuke staring at the car for a short while and then he said:

'Wow, that's a Z33 35th Anniversary Edition, isn't it?'

'Yeah, it's sixteen years old,' she explained, 'it used to belong to my father but it's in excellent condition.'

'It's a beautiful machine,' Kyosuke commented and, for some reason, that made the girl smile happily.

'Okay, so, when can I take the test?' Kizuna asked.

'Test?' Kyosuke asked back.

'Well, don't you guys test your potential members?' she asked feeling suddenly confused.

Kyosuke shook his head and, sounding a bit embarrassed, he replied:

'We're not that well organised, we don't even have the stickers yet.'

'Oh, I think I can survive without the stickers,' she said laughing softly.

'Alright, how does next Saturday, nine pm at the top of Mt Akagi sound?' he asked her.

'Sounds like a date,' she replied and a split second later, a horrified Kizuna realised what she had just said. She then heard Kyosuke Takahashi clearing his throat and, keeping a straight face, he said:

'Okay, whatever suits you.'

'Alright, I'll be there,' an embarrassed Kizuna managed to reply.

'Good, I'll see you then,' Kyosuke replied.

It took nothing short of a miracle for Kizuna to find her way back to her Nissan. She felt so mortified by how the entire conversation had gone that she barely registered that she had somehow managed to achieve a lot more than what she had come to Mt Myogi for.

Two days later, Kizuna was found standing in front of her closet trying to find something remotely elegant she could wear to the opening ceremony of the 2021 academic year and, after discarding several options, she settled for a knee-length black skirt, a dark blue blouse and a black jacket her mother had forced her to buy before leaving to Japan.

She then combed her hair and knowing that trying to style it in any other way was mission impossible, she just let it fall down as it was. To finish off, she donned a pair of tall flat boots and, grabbing the only handbag she owned, she threw her coat onto her shoulders and decided she was ready to go.

The instant she stepped out of her room she felt grateful she had gone through so much effort that morning because, out of every single one of the forty nine doors, she saw one model-like girl after another. She hadn't seen such a fashion parade ever since that time when, bored off her mind, had browsed one of her mother's Cosmopolitan magazines.

'Oh wow,' she muttered to herself.

Terrified that one of them might want to talk to her, Kizuna rushed towards the main building where the Aula Magna was. She hoped that among the hundreds of students who were already there, she would find it easier to disappear when she felt a tap on her shoulder and, turning around, she saw the last person she expected to see there.

'Hey,' Kyosuke said, 'I saw you coming in but I wasn't sure if it was you, Kizuna Ethridge, right?'

She could only nod.

'Don't tell me you're a student too?' he asked her.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'I'm a first year in Automotive Engineering.'

'Really?' Kyosuke asked her looking surprised.

'Yes,' Kizuna repeated.

'Cool,' Kyosuke said with a grin on his handsome face, 'I'm a second year in the same course.'

'Oh,' Kizuna gasped, 'that means you're my senpai.'

'I guess,' he replied looking a little flustered, 'it's amazing though, who would have thought you'd be here too!'

'I know,' Kizuna said then, something occurred to her, 'this doesn't change anything about, you know?'

'Oh no,' Kyosuke hurried to say, 'we still have that "date", right?'

Once again, Kizuna could only nod because she was too embarrassed to talk.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'I've got to go and join my classmates but, I hope I'll see you around.'

'Of course,' Kizuna replied.

She then observed him walking away from her and was about to try and find a seat herself when she saw three girls glaring at her in a very threatening way. One of them walked towards her and, placing her hands onto her hips, using a very nasty tone of voice, she asked her:

'Who are you and why were you talking to Takahashi-senpai?'

_To be continued…_


	4. Chapter Three

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Three_

'Didn't you hear me?' the girl said.

'Wha…'

'She's a foreigner,' one of the other two sneered, 'maybe she doesn't even speak our language.'

'I am not a foreigner,' Kizuna finally said, 'I was born in Japan.'

'Really?' the first girl clearly not believing her.

'And you still haven't answered to our question,' the third of the girls noted.

Kizuna stared at them for a moment trying to decide the best possible way to tell all three of them to go to hell when, realising that she would have to spend four years in that college, it probably wasn't the wisest thing to get herself three enemies on her very first day there. For this reason, she tried to be reasonable:

'My name is Kizuna Ethridge. I was talking to…Takahashi-senpai because…well…'

'Yes?' the three of them asked her at the same time.

'Because we're acquainted,' Kizuna replied, 'we've met through…mutual friends.'

'Is that all?' the girl who'd spoken first asked.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied then some suicidal instinct made her ask, 'why are you asking me this?'

'Why?' the girl repeated.

'Yes, why?' Kizuna asked her.

'Look,' she started, 'despite what you said, you're obviously not from here so, for today, we'll be good and explain how things work here: Takahashi-senpai is our ideal man. Quite a few of us would give anything for a date with him but we know he's not interested in this because…well…'

'Because he's concentrated on his studies,' one of her two friends supplied, 'he's very dedicated to his career and we know for a fact that he won't date anyone until he finishes college. For this reason you better forget any romantic notions you might have had with him.'

'Romantic notions?' Kizuna repeated unable to believe what she was hearing.

'Yes.'

'Well,' Kizuna said trying to sound patient and not patronising, 'you can all rest easy: I too want to concentrate on my studies so I'm most definitely not interested in dating Takahashi-senpai. Okay?'

The three girls started laughing in a very nasty way and then, one of them smirked at her and said:

'You're like a thousand years too early to talk like that.'

'That's right,' her friend said, 'there's no way he'd date someone like you, not in this lifetime anyway.'

'Let's go,' the one who seemed the leader said, 'she's hopeless,' then, glaring at Kizuna, she said, 'make sure you learn what your place is in here, if you don't want to have problems.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Kizuna asked narrowing her eyes.

'Just don't let us catch you talking to Takahashi-senpai again or you'll know what we mean.'

With that, the three girls walked away from her leaving the half-American girl positively fuming. She had had her fair share of hysterical chicks back home but this level of fangirlism went over anything she'd experienced before. She was so shocked she nearly missed the start of the welcome speech.

A couple of hours later, the huge room was beginning to empty when the girl saw Kyosuke walking towards her. She then remembered her not-so-friendly conversation with the three girls and that made her panic so much that, before she knew it, she turned around and started running towards the exit.

'Kiz…'

She didn't stop running until she got to the library's building and, once there, she felt her eyes widen with surprise. Kizuna was unable to believe what she had just done, running away like that was not what she would normally do. Was she really so scared of what those three nutters had told her?

Yes.

The answer to that was yes and the reason was obvious too: she was thousands of miles away from home, on her own and in an entirely new place with people she didn't know. It was only natural she was afraid. She still shouldn't have escaped like that, she thought miserably.

The worst thing was that she would still have to face him the following Saturday, not to mention that he attended the same college she did. A depressed Kizuna decided to spend most of the day at the library, locked up in one of the private study rooms she had found during one her explorations.

That night it took Kizuna quite a while to fall asleep.

The rest of the week went by without her bumping on neither of the three girls since none of them seemed to be enrolled in the same courses that she was. She didn't see Kyosuke either and that made her feel something weird she wasn't prepared to explain to herself yet.

On Saturday, Kizuna got up earlier than usual and, after the morning lessons and since April had brought with it slightly milder weather, she decided to go for a walk around the city and, for some reason, she found herself standing outside the window of a very popular fashion shop.

There, she saw a dark red skirt which was light-years too short for her standards.

Biting her lower lip, she looked at the faded jeans she was wearing and, mentally, she tried to think of what she had that she could wear that evening. She had that black skirt and possibly a smart pair of trousers she had got for some job interview but, other than that, she only owned jeans and other equally comfy clothes.

Following a whim, she walked into the shop and asked the assistant there if they had the skirt in her size and, less than fifteen minutes later, she left the shop with a bag containing what was her first impulsive purchase ever and, for once in her life, she understood the reason why some girls liked shopping so much.

It was kind of fun.

Getting carried away, she also got herself a new denim jacket, since she needed a new one anyway, and a long sleeved tight-fit t-shirt the colour of which went perfectly with her new skirt and by the time she got back into her room, she realised that she only had an hour to eat something, take a shower, get dressed and drive all the way to Mt Akagi's base.

'Oh crap,' she muttered to herself.

Deciding she'd get something to eat along the way, Kizuna grabbed her bathroom stuff and went to the dorm's shower rooms. She took one as fast as she could and, ten minutes later, she was back in her room drying her hair with her travel-sized hairdryer and as soon as she finished with that, she got dressed. At exactly twenty minutes to nine, Kizuna was on her way out again.

'Going out?' she heard a horribly familiar voice say.

It was one of the members of the Evil Trio, as she had started to think of the three weirdos who seemed set on making Kizuna's life in college a pretty miserable experience. She considered briefly ignoring her but, seeing that it would only make things worse, she smiled in a very fake way and said:

'Yes, I hope that's allowed in here.'

'It depends,' the girl replied with an even faker smile, 'who are you going out with?'

'Not that it's any of your business,' Kizuna said still forcing herself to smile, 'but you don't know them.'

'Is that so?' the girl replied this time with a real smile, 'have fun then.'

'I will,' she promised.

Running away from her, she made it to her Nissan with only fifteen minutes to get to Mt Akagi. She was pretty hungry but there simply was no way she could stop and eat somewhere and still make it on time to her appointment with the Golden Arrows so, instead, she climbed into her car and a few moments later, she left the college grounds behind.

Crossing the city of Maebashi wasn't an easy feat at any time of the day but, for some reason, on Saturday evening things were even worse, for this reason, she only made it to the outskirts of the city with just four minutes to go but, the instant she entered the Route 62, she floored the accelerator hoping that no one would see the speeding car.

At exactly one minute to nine, she arrived at destination and, right there, parked right in front of the vending machines from where she'd first seen the two Mazda, Kizuna saw the yellow one. Its driver was outside leaning against it, drinking from a can he'd probably just bought. The girl stopped her Nissan behind the RZ-1, climbing out of the car only after she was sure she was calm enough.

'Hi,' she said as cheerfully as possible.

'Hello,' Kyosuke replied. His tone was very serious.

'Are we early or are they late?' she asked him looking around herself.

'They'll be here shortly,' Kyosuke said, 'I told them to come at quarter past nine.'

'You did?' she asked him.

'Yes,' he replied, 'I needed to talk to you first.'

'What about?' she asked as casually as she could.

Kyosuke took another sip from his can and, looking at it for a second, as if he was trying to gather his thoughts, he pulled himself away from his car and, taking a few steps towards her, he stopped when he was standing right in front of her.

'That day,' he started, 'after the opening ceremony, you ran away from me, why?'

'Wha…'

'It made me feel rather confused, you know?'

'I'm sorry,' she said.

'What happened?' he asked, his tone sounded concerned.

'Nothing,' she replied a little too quickly, 'I just…I remembered I had to do something.'

'Really?' he asked her.

'Yes,' she replied, 'that's it.'

Kyosuke looked at her briefly and she saw him sigh, he then looked away for a bit frowning in worry as though as he was trying to figure out what to say next. When he glanced back at her, his face was once again as expressionless as when she'd first arrived.

'Can I ask you something?' he finally said.

'Of course,' she replied.

'Why do you want to join our team?'

'Why?' she repeated.

'Yes,' Kyosuke said, 'don't worry, it's not a test question, I'm just curious.'

'Alright,' Kizuna replied, 'I'm…I just want to improve my driving skills. I know you only want the best drivers on your team and…'

'Who told you that?' he asked her.

'Er…someone I met at Mt Myogi,' she replied.

'Well,' Kyosuke said with a small smile, 'that's just rubbish. I don't think that by having the best drivers one can just go and win all the races. A good team needs a whole lot more than skills. There are other factors like teamwork, reciprocal trust and many other things which help making a team great.'

'I agree,' she said.

'That's good to hear,' he commented.

The two remained in silence for a short while until Kyosuke, pulling his phone out of the front pocket of his shirt, started pressing a few buttons and then, showing its display to her, he said:

'This is my email address. It's what I wanted to tell you the other day.'

Kizuna pulled her own phone out of the tiny pocket of her miniskirt and, adding a new entry on her phone, she registered Kyosuke's name and email address. She then sent him an email so he could have hers too.

'Thanks,' he said after he finished adding her name to his address book.

'You're welcome,' she replied still feeling a little awkward.

The two of them heard the sound of a few cars coming their way and, soon, she saw Seisuke's white Mazda as well as the light blue S18 and the dark red Civic Type-R. The three cars stopped nearby and, out of all of them, Kizuna saw the same three guys she'd seen at Mt Myogi.

'Hello there!' Seisuke exclaimed cheerfully.

'Hi,' Kizuna replied shyly.

'See?' Seisuke said to one of the two other guys, 'she's here so, hand me the money.'

'Cheater,' the guy said, 'I'm sure you got your brother to text you the minute she showed up.'

'No way,' Seisuke said, 'you didn't do that, did you Aniki?'

'Of course not,' Kyosuke replied seriously.

Kizuna observed while the guy handed Seisuke a few banknotes with a scowl on his face. Seisuke quickly pocketed the money and, only then Kyosuke deemed it was safe for him to start the introductions but, before that, he asked her:

'Do you mind if we call you Kizuna?'

'Of course not,' she replied.

'Perfect,' Kyosuke said then, pointing at the guy who had just paid up, he said, 'Kizuna, this is Shimano Junya, he's twenty comes from Maebashi and he's our downhill specialist. That S18 over there is his ride.'

'Hi,' Kizuna said.

'Kyosuke,' the guy said ignoring her for a bit, 'is she really going to join our team?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'why are you asking?'

'No reason,' Junya said, 'I just would like to see how she drives before we accept her in.'

'That…'

'That's fine by me,' Kizuna interrupted.

'Good,' Junya said finally smiling a little, 'how would you…'

'Hey,' the other guy interrupted him, 'wait up, don't I get an introduction too?'

'Of course you do,' Kyosuke replied smiling.

'Hi,' the guy said introducing himself, 'I'm Kameyama Kazuya, I'm nineteen and I too live here in Maebashi.'

'He's also our social guru,' Kyosuke explained, 'and he's Junya's baby cousin.'

'Baby cousin?' Junya said with a smirk, 'I like that.'

'Shut up,' Kazuya protested then, elbowing Kyosuke he said, 'what's that "social guru" bullshit?'

'It's true,' Seisuke intervened, 'I swear, if there is anyone you _don't_ know, I'd die of shock.'

'I don't know her,' Kazuya replied pointing at Kizuna.

'That's because I just moved here from the US,' she explained trying to repress a chuckle.

'See?' Seisuke countered, 'she doesn't really count.'

'Anyway,' Kyosuke said trying to get the conversation back on topic, 'this rascal here is my younger brother Seisuke, he's eighteen and a first year medical student and the official mood maker of the team.'

'Impressive,' Kizuna commented then, she said, 'what about you?'

'Me?' Kyosuke asked looking a little flustered.

'Let me do the honours,' Seisuke said, 'he's our fearsome leader, he's nineteen and a bit, our uphill specialist and very soon he'll be the mother of all automotive engineers.'

'What's that supposed to be?' Kyosuke asked his brother.

'Your introduction, I believe,' Kazuya replied unnecessarily.

'So,' Junya said, 'this is us, what do you think? Feeling like running away already?'

'Not at all, I think you guys are great,' she replied honestly.

Right then, they heard another car coming in and that made all five of them look up. There coming down the pass, they saw a metallic grey Toyota Vera with official TRD modifications including a rather large wing attached at the back of the car, fairly low fenders and a carbon fibre hood with two rows of in-take grids.

'Who is that?' Seisuke voiced the question they all had in their heads.

They didn't have to wait long for the answer and, just a few instants later, the car stopped and, climbing out of it Kizuna saw the guy she'd met during the race in Mt Myogi, his name was Daichi Izawa, if her memory served her right. Unsurprisingly, she heard Kazuya say:

'I know him.'

'Hey!' Izawa said ignoring everyone else but her, 'you really are here!'

'What…'

'You know,' he continued while he closed the distance between himself and the group of five, 'when I heard you asking to become a member of the Golden Arrows, you gave me an idea: I too want to be part of it.'

'What?' Kazuya asked.

'No way,' Junya added.

'Why not?' Izawa asked back.

'Yes, why not?' Seisuke asked.

'Seisuke,' Junya started, 'we're still discussing if we want to accept her into the team. Don't you think we need to be a little more selective?' he asked looking at Kyosuke.

'Yes,' the leader agreed, 'we do. But you know I have nothing against increasing our numbers as long they all join for the right reasons,' then, looking at Izawa, he asked him, 'why do you want to join us?'

'Because of her,' he boldly replied, 'if she's in this team, I want to be in it too.'

'He's out,' Junya decided quickly while Kizuna wanted to simply disappear.

'Please tell me that's not the only reason,' Kyosuke practically begged him.

'Well, of course not,' Izawa replied, 'you guys are really cool, if I were part of this team…'

'I vote out,' Junya insisted.

'Me too,' Kazuya supported him.

'Really?' Izawa asked actually sounding surprised.

'I'm sorry,' Kyosuke said, 'but those are not a good enough reason to be part of this team. I can't allow any future members to be so frivolous about their motivations to join us. I…'

'Alright,' Izawa said and, this time, he sounded serious, 'so if I beat one of you in a race, would that be a good enough reason for me to become part of this team?'

'Can you do that?' Seisuke asked him sounding very interested.

'Why not?' Izawa countered.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'you'll race me.'

'What?' Junya asked him, 'come on Kyosuke…'

'He wants a race,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'I'll give him one.'

'Brilliant,' Izawa said looking absurdly happy.

Kizuna observed the whole scene and she saw that Junya looked slightly shocked, Kazuya and Seisuke were already discussing bets and Kyosuke just had his usual serious expression on his face. She found it hard to believe that the situation had degenerated so quickly.

'Excuse me,' she said, 'but…'

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke interrupted her gently, 'it won't be long, do you think you can wait for a bit?'

'Sure,' she said.

'Thanks,' he replied then, glancing back at Izawa, he said, 'let's go.'

'Uphill?' Izawa asked him on his way to his Toyota.

'What else?' Kyosuke replied also walking towards his Mazda.

Soon enough, the two cars were lined up right at the bottom of the pass with Kazuya standing in front of them. Kizuna, Junya and Seisuke just remained where they were, waiting for the sudden race to start. They saw Kazuya lifting his arm and, counting down from five, he shouted:

'GO!'

The two cars took off with Kyosuke's Mazda taking the lead so quickly that Kizuna felt her jaw fall open. So, this is what the Golden Arrows leader drove like during a real race, she thought feeling slightly light headed.

'He's not being serious,' Seisuke commented.

'What?' she asked him.

'He's right,' Kazuya agreed joining the group of three.

'How do you know?' she asked.

'When he is,' Junya explained, 'he always lets you overtake him.'

Kizuna observed the three members of the Golden Arrows and, once more, she had the distinct sensation that while not many people had seen Kyosuke Takahashi driving seriously, those three men had and, judging by the high level of respect they seemed to have for their leader, it was something worth seeing.

Meanwhile, Izawa was having a hard time just keeping up with the RZ-1.

Despite the fact that his Vera's engine made up to three hundred and fifty hp and that the TRD parts had given him the upper hand in quite a few races, he realised that his driving was full of flaws just by trying to follow the yellow Mazda.

Izawa observed in awe the way in which the guy made his RZ-1 enter one of the most challenging corners of the course: he noticed how the weight distribution, the braking point, the racing line he had chosen were so close to perfection that it almost made him want to give up.

Instead, as they exited the corner, he stared at the speedometer and, to his utmost shock he saw that they were travelling at over one hundred and twenty kilometres per hour while going uphill. Just by thinking of the speed these guys reached while going down the pass made him shiver.

For the following corners, he tried to copy what the RZ-1 did but to no avail and soon he saw that the gap between his Toyota and the Mazda kept on increasing and by the time they made it to the steeper section of the road, the distance was so absurd that he could only see the Mazda's taillights from afar.

The race was over.

The worse thing was that Izawa had the distinct impression that the Golden Arrows leader had not even pushed it, on the contrary, it looked like the guy had just driven up the way he usually did. That thought was so depressing that the Toyota driver failed to see that the Mazda was slowing down.

'What the…'

Slamming the brakes, his Vera came to a stop at the same time as Kyosuke parked his car by the side of the road. Feeling very confused, Izawa waited until he saw him climbing out of the car, forcing him to do the same.

'What's up?' Izawa asked.

'Congratulations,' Kyosuke replied, 'you managed to keep up with me until now.'

'Yeah but…'

'Listen,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'did you really mean it when you said that Kizuna and looking cool were the two reasons why you wanted to join our team?'

'No,' Izawa confessed.

'Then why did you say that?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Because…' Izawa started then, looking away from him while he scratched the back of his head, he said, 'I admire you guys a lot. A while ago I too wanted to found a team but I never found the guts to do it. You've been active for such a short time but you already have such a strong reputation.'

'With that reputation,' Kyosuke observed, 'comes a lot of expectations, you know that, don't you?'

'Yes,' Izawa replied.

'So,' Kyosuke repeated, 'what is your _real_ reason to join the Golden Arrows?'

'I want to be in the best possible team,' he said sounding very serious.

'Alright,' Kyosuke accepted.

'What?' Izawa asked now looking confused.

'You're in,' Kyosuke replied, 'we'll tell the guys that your driving was rather impressive, which is not too far from the truth. I take you've trained yourself around here for quite a while.'

'Yes, I have,' Izawa replied.

'With us you'll get heaps more practice,' Kyosuke promised.

'I'm looking forward to it,' Izawa smiled gratefully.

'Now,' Kyosuke said, 'let's go back down, my friend Junya is dying to see what Kizuna can do.'

'He's not the only one,' Izawa confessed candidly.

'No,' Kyosuke admitted, 'I guess he's not.'

Ten minutes later, the two cars joined the four down at the base and, the instant they were back, Seisuke walked towards his brother and, smiling at him, he asked:

'How many seconds did you wait?'

'A few,' Kyosuke replied cryptically.

'So,' Junya said sounding impatient, 'he's out, right?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'he's very much in.'

'What?' Junya exclaimed, 'didn't you beat him?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'but it doesn't matter. He kept up with me rather nicely, I think he's got potential.'

Izawa looked even more incredulous than Junya and the rest of the Arrows did.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'you're really letting him into the team?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'I also approve of his ride and you know Akito will too.'

'True,' Seisuke said, 'if it's a Toyota, it's got his seal of approval regardless.'

Kizuna was about to ask who this Akito was when Junya looked at her and said:

'I guess it's you and me now.'

'I guess so too,' Kizuna agreed.

'What do you prefer?' Junya asked her, 'I'm the downhill ace here so, if you want…'

'Downhill it is,' Kizuna interrupted him.

'Are you sure?' Kyosuke asked her frowning in worry.

'Hey Junya,' Kazuya said, 'you should be fair and race her uphill, she's…she's new here.'

Kizuna had the impression that he wanted to say that she was a girl but had stopped before he could say it. For this reason alone, she grew even more determined to race Junya in his best possible condition and, sounding as firm as she could, she looked from Kazuya to Kyosuke and said:

'Don't worry about me, I'll be happy to see if I can keep up with him.'

After a few moments of looking at each other, the Golden Arrows leader nodded once then, glancing at Junya, he gave him a look which spoke volumes: be careful not to push it too much. The S18 driver acknowledged the request with a simple nod then, he smiled at Kizuna and said:

'Ladies first.'

The girl smiled back and then she started walking towards her 350Z. She then climbed into it and waited until Junya had the engine of his S18 running to start the one of her Nissan. A couple of seconds later, she found herself leading the way up the mountain, using the few minutes at her disposal to start concentrating.

She could do this.

A few corners later, she saw the summit of the pass and using the space provided by the side of the road and there, she turned the car around, seeing that Junya was doing the same right behind her. The two Nissan were soon lined up next to each other and, since they had no one to do the countdown, they did it themselves.

Kizuna said out loud:

'Five, four, three, two, one.'

At the GO, she pressed the accelerator begging her Nissan to give her all it had in the first three corners of the course so that she would have enough accumulated speed to let inertia do the rest once they reached the steepest part of the pass.

To her surprise, Junya had chosen to remain behind her.

It's just a trick, she thought while negotiating the first of the real corners of the infamous pass, balancing her pedal work and the shifter in the way she'd found was the best to attack this particular sector of the road. Hearing the tyres screech while she drove by grip around the next corner made her smile a little.

The two cars followed each other along over half of the course, with Kizuna very aware that Junya was just keeping his distances when, all of a sudden, she saw that the S18 was getting ready to attack. Steeling her nerves, she prepared herself to block him the best way she could.

At the following corner, Junya pushed his car along a line that to Kizuna seemed impossible. She remembered that Kyosuke had introduced him as their downhill specialist and, therefore, it was likely the guy could do things which weren't what most people would consider normal.

For this reason, she decided to tackle that corner using a full drift instead so that, by crossing the car along the entire width of the road, she would make it impossible for Junya to overtake her.

It worked.

As it did in the following corners too but, unfortunately, Kizuna knew that the manoeuvre would not be equally successful when they reached the part of the course where the road was a lot wider. There, no matter how hard she tried, there would be no way to cover all the spaces.

In fact, just as they entered one of those first, wider corners, she saw Junya veering outwards, overtaking her with such ease that it almost made her want to cry. Swallowing, she concentrated harder than ever so that, at the very least, she could stay behind him until she could figure out what to do next.

The two cars were quickly reaching the bottom of the pass when Kizuna had an idea: she stuck her car right behind the S18. The Silvia, being higher than her 350Z effectively cut all the wind resistance and Kizuna felt the difference almost immediately, her car trailed after the other Nissan using significantly less power.

She then waited until the last possible corner and, just there, she veered towards the outside of it hoping that the speed she had saved up would allow her to overtake Junya's car. She had just about managed to level with him when, for some reason, the S18 started going faster.

Kizuna could only watch as the guy drove across the finish line moments before she did: she had lost.

_To be continued…_


	5. Chapter Four

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Four_

Kizuna stopped her car more or less at the same spot where she'd parked it when she had first arrived feeling her heart heavy with disappointment and her face hot with shame. She tried to swallow the knot which was tying her throat and for a few interminably long seconds she feared she would start crying.

'Hey,' she heard someone outside, 'are you alright?'

Kyosuke.

Letting out a shaky breath, Kizuna turned the engine off and, releasing the clasp of the four point racing seatbelt, she opened the door and climbed out keeping her head down so that she would not have to look at the five guys who were there, probably staring at her with pity.

'You were amazing.'

Looking up, she saw Kyosuke's handsome face smiling at her.

'What? But I…'

'Geez girl,' Junya complained, 'that move you pulled just there. To think you made me get so serious.'

'But...'

'Who taught you to drive?' Kyosuke asked her.

'My uncle,' she replied feeling supremely confused.

'Tell me something,' Junya said, 'how long have you been driving?'

'I got my driving license nearly four years ago,' Kizuna replied.

'WHAT?' Seisuke shouted.

'How old are you?' Kazuya asked her forgetting that one never asked a lady's age.

'I'm eighteen,' she replied nonetheless, 'I'll be nineteen in May.'

'But how...' Seisuke started then, he come up with the answer to his question on his own, 'that's right, you're from the US. You guys can get your license ages before we do, right?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied.

'So unfair,' Kazuya commented, 'and here I thought she was a newbie when in reality she's had her license for longer than any of us.'

'Well,' Junya added, 'at least that explains the reason why she's so good. Seriously Kyosuke, you guys should take her to the Centre so she can polish her drifts a bit.'

'You can drift?' Seisuke asked her.

'A little,' she confessed.

'Unbelievable,' the future doctor said looking more and more impressed.

'Now I really want to see her driving,' Izawa announced all of a sudden, 'feeling up to another race?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied before she had the time to, 'we'll have a meeting tomorrow at the Centre.'

'The Centre?' Kizuna asked frowning a little.

'That's right,' Kyosuke realised, 'you probably don't know of it: our family own a motorsports centre here in Maebashi where we have people coming to improve their driving skills, in advanced training courses and things like that.'

'I see,' Kizuna said.

'If you want,' he said, 'you could take that car of yours around for a spin.'

'That'd be fantastic,' Kizuna said, 'how much would it cost?'

'Cost? Kyosuke asked her now looking confused.

'It's free you silly,' Seisuke informed her, 'you're one of us now, we're not going to make you pay.'

'So,' Kyosuke continued, 'if you all agree, we'll meet there tomorrow so we can discuss a couple of things.'

'Such as?' Izawa asked.

'Well,' Kyosuke said, 'now that it's six of us, I think it's due time we come up with a logo for our stickers.'

'Brilliant!' Seisuke exclaimed happily, 'I already have a few ideas.'

'Why am I suddenly afraid hearing you say that?' Junya complained.

Everyone burst out laughing, including Kizuna.

'Anyway,' Kyosuke said talking to her, 'I'll send you an email with the address and a map.'

'Thanks,' she said.

'Let's all meet up at ten,' he then said speaking to everyone.

A few minutes later, Kizuna was on her way back to the dorm deciding she would stop at the convenience store to get a pot of noodles so that she could eat something. Not that she felt hungry anymore, she was too excited about what had just happened: she was a Golden Arrows.

She still had no idea what to think about her new team mates. Kazuya and Seisuke always seemed ready for a joke and the two were honestly funny, especially Seisuke who enjoyed even the fact of being alive. Junya was the cynical one and she felt lucky he'd been impressed by her driving for, she knew, earning his respect was probably the most difficult thing to achieve in the team.

Then there was Izawa, she could not believe what the guy had said when he'd asked to be part of the team. Kizuna decided she'd just pretend the guy was joking for, right now, she really didn't want to think of getting involved with anyone and, for some twisted reason, that made her think of Kyosuke.

The Golden Arrows leader was something else. He was definitely too serious for his own good but somehow Kizuna felt that this personality would suit her fine for she too was a fairly serious girl. It was also very obvious that everyone in the team respected him and even looked up to him, especially his brother Seisuke. She tried not to think about the fact that he was also a really good looking guy and, for a few seconds, she remembered what the Evil Trio had told her: Kyosuke really seemed like the ideal man. Her ideal man.

'What?' Kizuna found herself saying out loud.

Realising she was in the middle of the convenience store, she picked the pot of noodles she had come to buy and, hurrying towards the till, she shook her head unable to believe she had just thought of something as dangerous as that. She just could not afford having this kind of thoughts about someone like Kyosuke Takahashi.

No way on Earth.

Once in her room, she took her clothes off, put her pyjama on and started eating her noodles while she watched some Indy Racing League videos her uncle had just sent her by email. It wasn't until nearly one o'clock in the morning when a tired Kizuna cleaned her teeth, washed her face and got herself in bed.

That night, she dreamed of a yellow RZ-1.

The next morning, having thrown a pair of jeans and a light jumper on, she put her denim jacket on and, after having some coffee and a pastry at the MIT's cafeteria, she went to her Nissan, climbed into it and, checking the map Kyosuke had sent her to her phone earlier that morning, she decided she was ready to go.

Finding the Centre wasn't difficult, in fact, following the road which led to Kan'Etsu Expressway, she saw that there were a few signs along the way which announced the presence of the Takahashi Motorsports Centre. Surprised that the structure was important enough to have its name printed on the official road signs, Kizuna wondered how it was possible that she hadn't heard of it before the previous night. She also remembered that Kyosuke had told her that the place belonged to his family and that made her feel a bit overwhelmed.

Seeing the sheer size of the actual place didn't make her feel any better: the entrance alone was wide enough to let three trucks get in at the same time. The parking space right in front of the main building could easily hold about one hundred cars and while she drove her Nissan along the car park, she saw among a few others, the two Mazda RZ-1 which belonged to the Takahashi brothers. Parked next to them, she saw a panda coloured, old but beautifully kept Toyota AE86. From her car's window she saw a decal with black kanji stuck onto the right side of it; it said "Fujiwara Tofu Shop".

'Fujiwara?' she muttered to herself while she stopped her Nissan not far from the three cars.

Surely it was a coincidence, the girl thought while she climbed out of her car. She then locked the door and started walking towards the main entrance, hoping that she would find one of the members of the Golden Arrows before she managed to get herself lost. She had only taken a few steps away from her car when something else got her attention.

Not far from the main building, she saw what looked like a full sized circuit complete with two sets of grandstands as well as a pitlane containing several boxes. She also saw a bit further away a couple of hangar-like constructions, one of which had its gates open and, even from where she was, she saw several cars lined up as well as quite a few karts.

Deciding to forget about going to the main building, she started walking towards the circuit and then she saw it: a little red F3 car was currently clearing one of the circuit's two chicanes with such mastery that it left Kizuna open-mouthed and unable to move from where she was.

It was simply amazing.

The single-seater's driver was making the tiny car take each corner as though as it was on rails but what was even scarier was the fact that it was made look like a pretty effortless affair instead of the very advanced technique that it was. Then, at the main straight, Kizuna saw the car darting at such high speed that she knew it had to be making at least two hundred and fifty kilometres an hour.

'Wow,' she gasped.

She then noticed that four people were standing by the short wall which separated the pitlane from the track: two of them were the Takahashi brothers, the other were two men who looked in their mid-to-late forties. One of them seemed to be an older version of Kyosuke, the other held a handset and was concentrated on the F3 car as it went around the circuit.

'Good morning,' she said as she got closer to the group.

Kyosuke and his brother turned round and, seeing her there, he smiled and said:

'Hello.'

'You're early,' Seisuke pointed out.

'A little,' she said then, staring back at the F3 car, she said, 'that's one of your instructors, right?'

For some reason that made the two brothers look at each other and let out a chuckle at the same time. The other man, the one who looked like Kyosuke just raised his eyebrows. The one watching the F3 car didn't even bother looking away from the little car. In fact, he didn't even seem to have noticed her arrival.

'No,' Kyosuke said with a smile, 'he's definitely not an instructor.'

Kizuna then heard the other older man speak into the handset:

'Akito, get back in at the end of this lap.'

'Alright,' she heard the radio crack.

A few moments later, Kizuna saw the F3 car driving down the pitlane stopping right in front of the five people there. Climbing out of it with practiced ability, the driver removed his helmet and fireproof balaclava and only then Kizuna recognised him: he was the skinny kid she'd seen at Mt Myogi talking to Kyosuke.

'How was it?' the kid asked to the man with the handset.

'Not bad,' the man replied, 'you'll need to increase it to eighty percent in the next run.'

'Alright,' the kid replied then, noticing Kizuna, he frowned a little and asked her, 'who are you?'

'Er…'

'Akito,' Kyosuke said before she could speak, 'this is Kizuna Ethridge, she's a member of our team now.'

'Team?' Akito asked, 'you mean the Golden Arrows?' he asked sounding surprised.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'she joined us last night.'

'Oh,' Akito gasped, he then looked at her only that this time he seemed as though as he was supremely jealous of her. He glanced back at Kyosuke and said, 'you didn't say anything about it this morning.'

'We wanted to surprise you,' Seisuke said.

'Okay,' the kid said now looking at the girl, 'I'm officially surprised.'

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke added, 'this is our best friend Fujiwara Akito.'

'Fujiwara?' she repeated.

'Yes,' Kyosuke confirmed, 'this man here,' he said indicating his own older version, 'is our Uncle Keisuke, he's the owner of this Centre and he's Takumi-san, Akito's father as well as our best instructor here.'

'Fujiwara?' she said again looking at Akito.

'That's right,' Akto replied looking as confused as everyone else, 'is there anything wrong with that?'

'Are you related to a Fujiwara Bunta?' she asked him.

'You know my grandfather?' Akito asked her now sounding as surprised as he did earlier.

'He's your grandfather?' Kizuna asked him.

'Yes,' Akito replied, 'how come you know him?', he wanted to know.

'He's friends with an old friend of my father,' she explained, 'Suzuki Masashi-san,' she added.

'Suzuki-san?' Takumi asked, 'you know him?'

'Yes, sir,' Kizuna replied.

'Wow,' Keisuke said, 'the world is sure a small place…'

'It sure is,' Takumi agreed.

'So,' Akito intervened looking at his two best friends, 'you guys are having a meeting or something?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'we're going to talk about a couple of things. I know you're busy now but,' he stopped and looked at Akito's father briefly before he returned his gaze to his friend, 'do you think you can take a break to join us?'

'Dad?' Akito asked.

'I guess it's okay if you take a break,' Takumi decided, 'but you need to do another forty laps today.'

'I know,' Akito said then, before his father could change his mind, he looked at Kyosuke and said, 'let's go.'

Kizuna found herself following the two Takahashi brothers and Akito who was still wearing his racing suit all the way to the main building while, presumably, the other two men took care of the F3 car. She had so many questions that she hardly noticed that Kazuya and Junya were already at the stairs waiting for them.

'Hello there!' Kazuya exclaimed seeing them.

'Hey,' Seisuke replied.

'Not slacking off, are we?' Junya asked looking at Akito.

'Leave him alone,' Kyosuke commanded then, he said, 'he's taking a break but we don't have too long so let's get on with our meeting before his father comes to get him back into the car, okay?'

'Sure, sure,' Junya said.

Stepping into the building, Kizuna found herself walking along a wide corridor with a couple of huge glass-covered displays on both sides containing pictures, cups and several other racing-related paraphernalia. She couldn't help but to notice that, in one of the photographs there, she recognised two younger versions of the two men she'd just met at the circuit's pitlane.

'They were racers too,' Kyosuke told her seeing what she was looking at.

'I see,' Kizuna said, 'what about Akito-kun?'

'He's currently the defending champion in the National Karting Championship as well as training for a test he has with one of the F3 teams. If everything goes well, he'll debut with them soon.'

'Be quiet,' Akito complained, 'you'll jinx me.'

'Yeah right,' was Seisuke's incredulous remark.

'How old are you?' Kizuna couldn't help but to ask.

'I'm fifteen,' he replied, 'I'll be sixteen this year.'

'In October,' Seisuke reminded him, 'that's ages away.'

'You're fifteen,' Kizuna repeated.

'Yes,' Akito replied sounding a little annoyed.

'Wow,' she gasped.

'Yeah,' Kazuya intervened hooking his arm around Akito's neck, 'he's our little racing genius.'

'Little?' Akito asked looking dismayed while he removed himself from the older guy's grasp.

'Yes,' Junya confirmed, 'you're a shorty.'

'Oi,' the kid complained, 'I'm still growing up, soon I'll be taller than all of you.'

'In your dreams,' Seisuke said making Kizuna bit her lip to stop herself from laughing.

They were about to enter one of the meeting rooms when they heard someone rushing towards them and, turning round, they saw Izawa looking like he'd been running all the way from Tokyo. When he got to where they were, he visibly struggled to catch his breath.

'Take it easy man,' Seisuke said.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I'm late…I…'

'It's okay,' Kyosuke interrupted him.

'There was a shipment coming in at the last minute,' he explained as quickly as he could, 'I work at the fish market, you see? And since I had to take a shower I…'

'I said it's okay,' Kyosuke repeated, 'I understand.'

'Let me guess,' Akito said, 'yet another new addition to the team.'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied with a lopsided smile.

Kizuna wasn't paying attention to any of it, she had her attention on the fifteen year old kid, finding herself unable to believe that someone so young could already be on his way to compete in an international racing championship which effectively was a couple of steps away from things like Formula One and Indy Racing League.

To think that she'd dismissed him so quickly back at Mt Myogi…

'Are you with us?' she heard Seisuke asking her.

'Yeah,' she replied.

Soon, all seven of them were seated around a big, polished wooden table. Kizuna observed the entire room which seemed to be used to hold both meetings as well as the theory lessons the Centre also seemed to give to its clients. She still could not believe that she had somehow earned the right to be there in the first place.

'So, before we begin,' Kyosuke said, 'since you two are new, if you have any questions…'

'I do,' Izawa interrupted him.

'Go ahead,' Kyosuke said.

'Why did you call the team "Golden Arrows"?'

Kizuna perked up on her seat since she too wanted to know.

'That's partially my fault,' Seisuke said, 'you see,' he explained, 'a couple of years ago when Aniki and I were brainstorming names for our future team, we started thinking of things which travelled fast and, I suggested the "Arrows" bit, then Aniki thought of the Silver Arrows, you know, the old Mercedes-Benz racing cars?'

'Yes,' Izawa replied.

'Well,' Kyosuke continued, 'legend has it that the cars became silver from the original white they had because in order to comply with the weight limitations, the mechanics decided to scrap all the paint off the car leaving the metal bare.'

'So,' Seisuke said, 'Aniki thought that we could be called Golden instead but we would apply, metaphorically, the same scraping principle, meaning that our members would need to forget what they'd done up to then and, once they became a Golden Arrow, they would start things from scratch.'

'I see,' Kizuna commented.

'Any other questions?' Kyosuke asked, this time looking at Kizuna who shook his head, 'alright, now, first item on the agenda is the logo, we need to come up with something so that I can order the stickers…'

After half an hour of discussing several options and as it usually happens in these situations, they ended up settling for one of the first versions suggested. Using one of the computers from the room, Kazuya applied everyone's ideas to make up what everyone agreed was the best solution.

'I like it,' Kizuna said.

'Me too,' Akito agreed.

'You're not even in the team,' Junya pointed out.

'But he's got a say too,' Kyosuke insisted.

'Anyway,' Seisuke said, 'Kizuna is right, black lettering will go better against the different colours of our cars. And the two Golden Arrows need to go right on top of the name. Can we use italics instead?' he then asked.

'Of course,' Kazuya replied and, in a tick, he had what was the final version.

'Good,' Kyosuke said, 'print it out, I'll take it to the shop tomorrow morning.'

'How many stickers are you going to order?' Junya asked him.

'I'll get two for each of us plus a few more as spares,' Kyosuke replied.

'Cool,' Izawa said looking like he couldn't wait to have his so that he could put stick them onto his Vera.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'now, for the most important bit: we've received a challenge.'

'Really?' Kizuna couldn't help but to ask.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied then, looking at Kazuya, he added, 'does the name Ikeda Masato ring any bells?'

'Ikeda Masato?' Kazuya repeated frowning then, he nodded and as everyone expected, he said, 'yes, I know of him. He's a guy from Isesaki, he studies Literature at Gunma University.'

'How the hell do you know that?' Izawa asked him all of a sudden.

'Trust me,' Seisuke replied, 'you don't want to know.'

'I do,' Kizuna countered sounding genuinely curious.

'Kazuya?' Kyosuke said.

'Alright,' the guy said, 'they'll find out sooner or later. My father's the prefecture's governor and he's got quite an extended social network, that's how I know so many people and what they do.'

'That's scary, you know?' Izawa said.

'You haven't met Uncle Masaki,' Junya commented.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke agreed, 'compared to him our own uncle is a softy.'

'Now _that_ I find hard to believe,' Akito said.

'So,' Seisuke said, 'this team, where do they race?'

'That's the interesting part,' Kyosuke said, 'apparently they're trying to claim Mt Akagi as their home turf.'

'They're doing what?' Junya asked him.

'So,' Kyosuke said, 'I take you guys won't have anything against accepting the challenge.'

'Of course not,' Seisuke replied.

'Do you even need to ask?' Kazuya said with a smirk.

'How many are they?' Kizuna wanted to know.

'Four,' Kyosuke replied, 'I know…when I heard of this you two weren't in the picture.'

'So,' Junya said, 'two of us won't get to race.'

'Yes,' the leader replied then, before Junya could say anything to that, he continued, 'we'll do a draw and decide who races randomly, we'll also decide who races who with a draw. Is that fair enough for all of you?'

Everyone nodded their agreement more or less enthusiastically. Except Akito who, Kizuna noticed, was pouting in a way which made him look even younger than he already did. He glanced at her and that made him train his features back to some sort of serious face, failing so spectacularly that Kizuna smiled at him.

'Okay guys,' he said getting up, 'if that's all, I need to go back to work now.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said looking slightly worried, 'you and Ryoko will come to this race too, won't you?'

'Of course,' Akito replied then, he looked at the two newest additions of the team and said, 'being a part of the Golden Arrows is a privilege, I hope you two know that.'

'We do,' Kizuna replied seriously while Izawa just nodded.

'Good,' the young racer said, 'I'll see you later,' he added looking at the Takahashi brothers.

Soon after Akito's departure, Junya announced that he had to go too since he was due to start his shift at a photographic studio where he worked as an assistant. Kazuya left with him saying he needed to get some information for a paper he was writing and Izawa took off in his Toyota very shortly after the two cousins.

That left Kizuna alone with the two Takahashi brothers.

'Alright,' Seisuke said while the three of them walked out of the building, 'I've got to go too, Kaori and I are going to the concert of one of her friends from high school, I think she plays the cello!'

'I'll see you back home later, right?' Kyosuke asked with a small smile.

'Sure,' Seisuke replied then, grinning in his own super-cheerful way, he said, 'I can't wait for the race!'

He then half ran, half skipped towards his white Mazda making his older brother shake his head. An amused Kizuna observed the scene deciding that Seisuke had to be one of the happiest people in the whole world. She kind of envied his carefree personality and wished she too could let herself loose the way he did.

'So,' Kyosuke said, 'it's just the two of us.'

'Yeah,' Kizuna replied.

'Would you care for a tour around the Centre?' he asked her.

'Sure,' Kizuna replied.

The two started walking around the main building's perimeter leaving the Centre's main circuit behind where Kizuna could see Akito's F3 car flying around the circuit. While they walked Kyosuke explained to her what each of the structures there were for, including a few of the short training tracks they used for the advanced driving courses, the dirt one they used for both motocross as well as all-terrain cars and then he also showed her the go-kart circuit in which he and Seisuke had met Akito for the first time ever.

'Speaking of your bother,' she said, 'is he always so cheerful?'

'He tries to be,' Kyosuke replied.

'What do you mean?' she asked.

'Don't tell him I said this,' Kyosuke asked her, 'but Seisuke's lively personality is just a façade to protect himself. You know, out of all of us, I think he's the most sensitive and fragile one. Sometimes I worry because we never know when he's feeling down because he always has a smile on his face.'

'That's understandable,' she commented, 'after all, you're his older brother.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke said.

'What about Akito?' Kizuna asked him, 'you guys seem to be very close.'

'We are,' Kyosuke replied, 'we've known each other since we were kids and our parents have known each other for even longer than that. Akito is like a third brother to Seisuke and I. Plus, he's dating our cousin Ryoko.'

'That girl I saw at Mt Myogi?' she asked.

'Yes,' he replied, 'she's Uncle Keisuke's daughter.'

'Oh,' Kizuna gasped then, she added, 'you guys will be so proud if he gets into that F3 team, right?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied, 'Akito is awesome. In fact, he's too awesome.'

'What do you mean?' she asked him.

'He's a truly talented guy,' Kyosuke replied, 'and sometimes I think that if it wasn't because all of us, especially his father, make sure we keep him firmly on the ground, he'd become unbearably arrogant.'

'What?' Kizuna asked, 'I find that difficult to believe, he's…'

'He's a good kid,' Kyosuke said, 'but I'm always worried that the more he gets into the professional racing world, the more difficult it will be to keep him the way he is. To be honest, I'm worried that by the time he'll be old enough to join our team, he won't have the time or disposition to bother with us.'

'You really think that?' she asked.

'Yes,' Kyosuke said then, frowning a little, he realised that he had said too much, 'sorry, I don't even know why I'm telling you all of this, I'm just boring you with…'

'It's fine,' Kizuna said, 'and, for the record, I don't think Akito will pass on becoming a Golden Arrow.'

'What makes you say that?' Kyosuke asked her.

'You should have seen his face when you told us about that challenge,' Kizuna replied, 'he looked like he was in pain because he isn't old enough to take part on the races.'

'He did?' Kyosuke said with a smile.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'he was so cute that it made me want to get up so that I could ruffle his hair.'

That made Kyosuke laugh softly in a way which made him look even more handsome.

'What to do say if we take our cars around one of the training tracks for a bit?' he suggested.

'I say it's a fantastic idea,' Kizuna replied.

The two of them made their way back to the parking area so that they could take the Nissan and the Mazda around the building and onto one of the training courses. While Kizuna followed the Golden Arrows leader's car, she realised that, unless she was extremely careful, she would end up falling for Kyosuke and that was something she needed to avoid at all costs.

No, she would not let it happen.

Ever.

_To be continued…_


	6. Chapter Five

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Five_

Two weeks after the meeting, Kyosuke stood next to the one of the training tracks watching Kizuna's 350Z going into a slight oversteer just before a right hand turn then, in what was a manoeuvre which kept getting smoother the more she repeated it, he saw her performing a nearly perfect drift and that made him smile.

'How was it?' she asked him a few moments later.

'You're getting better all the time,' he replied, 'you really should come here every day.'

'You know I can't,' Kizuna said frowning a little.

'I know,' Kyosuke replied, 'you're always busy with schoolwork, to be honest, I can't remember my first year being that bad. It's also unbelievable that we go to the same college, yet I hardly ever see you around the campus. You know, if I were to get paranoid, I'd think you're avoiding me.'

'No,' she tried to laugh but instead she chocked, 'that's not true.'

'I know,' he said, 'it's just that sometimes it does feel that way.'

'I'm sorry,' she said.

'Anyway,' Kyosuke hurried to say noticing her sombre expression, 'I just wanted you to know that you're more than welcome to come here as often as you want. Uncle Keisuke doesn't mind if we use one of the tracks as long as they haven't been booked by any of the clients.'

'I know and I'm very grateful for that,' she said honestly, 'this is a truly amazing place.'

'It is,' Kyosuke agreed looking proud.

'You know,' she continued, 'I'm still in awe about what you told me about him and Takumi-san. It really is inspiring to know that they achieved so much in such a short period of time. Your uncle even went on to the international racing scene! I feel such an ignorant person for not having recognised the name.'

'Hey,' he said, 'it's not your fault: you were only a kid when he retired. His last official race was in Le Mans when I was about nine and besides, it's difficult to follow rallying when you're as much into IRL as you are.'

'That's true,' Kizuna agreed, 'I'm hoping that I'll get a job in one of the IRL teams one day. I would love to be an engineer there but, to be honest, I'd settle for anything as long as they let me work for them.'

'Is that the reason why you're studying Automotive Engineering?' he asked her.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'what's yours?'

'The same one, pretty much,' Kyosuke said, 'in my case, it should be Formula One.'

'You might end up working with Akito then,' Kizuna observed.

'That's the idea,' Kyosuke confessed.

'We do have pretty big dreams, don't we?' Kizuna asked with a soft chuckle.

'We do,' he agreed, 'but so did my parents and they pretty much achieve everything they wanted. That's a great source of inspiration for us. If they could do it with a lot less time and resources than we do now, imagine what we can accomplish ourselves.'

'It'd be great if we could make our dreams come true,' Kizuna replied.

The two of them remained silent for a short while then, looking at his watch, he realised that it was getting rather late and that unfortunately for him, he still needed to finish a paper which he had left half-written when Kizuna had told him she had some free time to go to the Centre.

'Do you have to go?' she asked.

'Er,' he hesitated, 'I kind of do, but…'

'It's okay,' she said, 'I have an early lecture tomorrow and we also have that challenge with that Ikeda.'

'We do,' Kyosuke agreed.

'In that case,' she said, 'I think we should call it a day.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'but I meant what I said earlier: come here whenever you want, okay?'

'I will,' she promised.

Five minutes later, she was gone and Kyosuke made his way to his own car feeling slightly happier than usual. He noticed that he'd been smiling a lot more ever since Kizuna had shown up and, in all honesty, he liked spending time with her because, unlike with other girls, he felt at ease with Kizuna. Almost as if he had known her for his entire life.

'Who are you?' Seisuke asked him the instant he got home.

'What?'

'Ryoko,' Seisuke ignored him, 'do you know this guy?'

The girl didn't even grace him with an answer and kept browsing her glossy magazine instead. Kyosuke decided to copy her and, turning round he started making his way towards the stairs so that he could go to his room. Unfortunately, Seisuke decided to follow his older brother up the stairs.

'Where have you been?' he asked.

'The Centre,' Kyosuke replied feeling slightly annoyed.

'Alone?'

'Is that any of your business?' Kyosuke challenged him.

Seisuke planted himself in front of the door of his older brother's room and, crossing his arms on top of his chest, he smiled in the kind of know-it-all smirk which meant Kyosuke would not get away so easily.

'I was with Kizuna,' he finally confessed.

'I knew it!' Seisuke exclaimed triumphantly, 'so, you two are going out?'

'No!' Kyosuke replied, 'it's nothing like that.'

'Then what is it?' Seisuke wanted to know.

'We're just training,' he replied.

'Training?' Seisuke asked looking incredulous, 'is that what you guys call it these days?'

'Seisuke,' Kyosuke said exasperatedly, 'I'm not having this conversation with you.'

'Why not?'

'Because…because that's not what it is and…'

'And?'

'Kizuna and I are friends, okay?'

'Right,' Seisuke said sceptically.

'Seriously,' Kyosuke insisted, 'there's nothing going on between us. She's…'

'Yes?'

'Seisuke,' he warned, 'let me get into my room, I have work to do.'

'Okay,' the younger brother said, 'but not before you tell me if I'm right.'

'About what exactly?' a definitely annoyed Kyosuke asked.

'You like her,' Seisuke replied. It wasn't a question.

'What?'

'You _don't_ like her?' Seisuke smirked.

Kyosuke finally lost his patience and, pushing his younger brother aside, he tried to get the door open before Seisuke could reassume his interrogatory. He made it into his room just in time to hear his laughter and, for some reason that made Kyosuke close the door with a little more strength than needed.

Did he like Kizuna?

Shaking his very confused head, he decided that he didn't want to think about it.

Kyosuke chose to spend the evening locked up in his room trying to read some of the material for his advanced physics paper but he quickly gave up on that when he found himself reading the same paragraph for the fourth time in a row and, setting the book aside, he just went to lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

Kyosuke woke up hearing a soft knock on his door.

'Who is it?'

'It's me,' he heard Ryoko's voice say, 'can I come in?'

'Yes,' he replied moving to sit on the edge of his bed.

He then saw the door opening a little and then his cousin's head poked through it trying to see if it was safe for her to step into the room. Obviously deciding that it was, she came into the room, leaving the door open.

'What can I do for you?' he asked her as kindly as he could.

'Your mother wants to know if you're hungry,' Ryoko told him.

'No,' Kyosuke replied and it was true. His stomach didn't seem like it could process anything but water.

'Alright,' Ryoko said hesitating for an instant.

'Is that all?' Kyosuke asked her.

'No,' the girl replied looking unsure, 'I wonder if I could give you a piece of advice.'

'Regarding what?' Kyosuke asked.

'Well,' she said biting her lower lip for a bit, 'Seisuke said that…'

'Ryoko,' he interrupted her, 'Seisuke has no idea of what he's talking about.'

'You really think so?' Ryoko challenged him then, not waiting for an answer, she said, 'I know I'm not as smart as you guys are…'

'That's not true,' Kyosuke said frowning a bit.

'Anyway,' she dismissed it, 'I'm not as clever as you but there are a few things in which I think I'm a lot more confident than you are so, I hope that you can hear me out without getting mad at me the way you got mad at Seisuke.'

'I didn't get mad at…'

'You did,' Ryoko said, 'and you better make sure you tell him you're not really mad at him before he starts considering ways to cheer you up.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke agreed suddenly feeling a little guilty, 'I'll go and talk to him later.'

'Good,' Ryoko said.

'I won't get mad at you,' Kyosuke promised her, 'so, what is it that you want to tell me?'

'Alright,' Ryoko said, 'I know Seisuke can be annoying sometimes but, I also know that his judgement when it comes to certain things is usually very accurate. He is convinced that you like this Kizuna girl and…'

'Ryoko, I…'

'Please,' she interrupted him, 'let me finish.'

'Alright,' he accepted.

'I think you should ask yourself if Seisuke is right and, if he is, then you should do something about it.'

'Ryoko,' he said deciding to be honest with her, 'you're all assuming that she likes me back and…'

'She doesn't?' she asked him as though as she thought it was impossible for a girl not to like him.

'I don't think she does,' he replied a little dejectedly.

'What makes you say that?' Ryoko asked now frowning in worry too.

'Well,' he said, 'it sometimes seems like she doesn't really want to spend time with me. Take today, for instance, it's taken me three text messages for her to agree to join me at the Centre and I think she's avoiding me while we're at school.'

'Really?' she asked him, 'that's weird…'

'I'm glad you agree,' Kyosuke replied.

'But that doesn't mean she doesn't like you,' Ryoko decided, 'for all you know, it might even be a really twisted way for her to play hard to get. She's half-American, maybe that's what they do over there.'

'You reckon?' Kyosuke asked her.

'No idea,' she replied, 'I've never been to the US. At any rate, it's not like you need to do a movie-like confession of undying love. You just need to ask her out, take her to the movies or something like that.'

'But…'

'If she says yes,' Ryoko continued, 'then you two can just take it from there. I think it'd be a lot easier and a much more realistic option because, let's face it, I can't see you doing the whole confessing thing.'

'No,' Kyosuke agreed, 'no way I'd do that.'

'Precisely,' Ryoko said, 'but you must hurry: if you do like her, you need to move fast or she might start seeing someone else. Not all girls are prepared to wait forever until a guy asks them out.'

'Akito did take his time with you,' he commented gently.

'Yes, he did,' Ryoko said, 'and I nearly gave up on him.'

Hearing that made Kyosuke consider his options and he didn't like at all thinking of a scenario in which Kizuna started dating someone else because he hadn't made his move sooner. For this reason, he said:

'Alright, I'll think about it, I promise.

'That's what I wanted to hear,' Ryoko said then, smiling at him, she said, 'I really can't wait to meet her: she must bust be awesome if she's managed to get to you as much as she obviously has.'

This time Kyosuke didn't even bother to deny it, instead, he smiled back at his cousin and said:

'You know, you've changed…'

'I know,' the girl said looking very serious, 'I think that what happened with Akito in February has a lot to do with it.'

'I see,' Kyosuke commented then, he added, 'can you do me a favour?'

'Sure,' Ryoko replied.

'Tell Seisuke that he was right but to please let me handle things my way.'

'Alright,' she said smiling at him, 'I'll do my best to convince him to stay out of it.'

'Thanks,' Kyosuke said and, with this, he watched as his cousin walked out of his room closing the door after her. Thinking that Ryoko would do her best to get Seisuke to behave was very comforting because, in all honesty, he didn't know anyone who could be anywhere near as persuasive as she was.

The evening after, at the MIT's dorm, Kizuna was once again standing in front of the closet trying to decide what to wear for what effectively was her first race as a member of the Golden Arrows. She debated between a pair of black slacks she had, her trusty pair of jeans or that new dark red miniskirt.

She was about to take the hanger with the skirt when her phone started ringing:

'Hello?' Kizuna replied without even checking the caller.

'Hi honey,' her mother said, 'how are you?'

'Mum!' she said, 'what a surprise…but, wait a minute, what's the time for you?'

'Five in the morning,' Salina replied, 'I couldn't sleep so I decided to call you to see how you are.'

'Well,' Kizuna said, 'I'm going out with some friends,' she explained speaking as casually as she could.

'Really?' her mother asked sounding surprised.

'Yes,' Kizuna confirmed.

'That's excellent,' Salina said, 'I knew coming to Japan would be good for you. So tell me, are there any cute guys in the picture?'

'Mum!'

'Hey,' the woman said laughing softly, 'I'm just saying…'

'No Mum,' Kizuna stopped her, 'I'm focusing on my studies just like I promised you I would. You know well what happens if you let, certain distractions, get in the way of your projects.'

'I know,' her mother said, 'but I'm also confident you're strong enough to not let it happen.'

'I wish,' Kizuna whispered almost inaudibly.

'What was that?' Salina asked her.

'Nothing,' she replied, 'how is Uncle Josh?' she asked instead.

'He's fine,' Salina replied then, she added, 'but I shouldn't keep you on the phone. Go and have fun!'

'I will,' Kizuna promised.

'I love you,' her mother said.

'Me too,' Kizuna replied and then listened as her mother closed the call. She was going to put the phone down so that she could go and get dressed when she saw the little symbol which told her that there was a new text message. Scrolling down the options, she selected the inbox and saw that the text was from Izawa.

It said:

"_Hi! I'm looking forward to tonight's race. If we win, there's something I need to tell you. "_

Kizuna swallowed.

She then took a deep breath hoping she'd read the message wrong. For this reason, she sat down on top of her bed and re-read the message a couple of times finding it increasingly difficult not to jump to the most obvious conclusion and she felt suddenly afraid of being faced with a very much unwanted confession.

It wasn't as though she found Izawa repulsive, the guy was cute enough in his own goofy way but, all things considered, she knew she could never see him as anything else but a friend and she knew that if he asked her out, she would have to say no and she feared that this could affect the team in a negative way and Kyosuke would be less than impressed with her if that happened.

That thought upset her a lot.

What shocked her the most was the fact that Izawa, in none of the few occasions in which they had seen each other during the past two weeks had made any reference to what he'd said about her the evening in which he'd asked to join the team to the point that she'd convinced herself that it had all been a joke.

And now this.

Getting up from her bed, Kizuna grabbed the black slacks and decided to dress in the least attractive possible way by throwing on her a sweatshirt and the oldest pair of trainers she had. She completed the operation by tying her hair on a high ponytail and, after that she checked her reflection in the mirror.

'Perfect,' she said.

A few minutes later she climbed into her Nissan, thanking her lucky star that none of the members of the Evil Trio was around for, right now, she needed some peace of mind so that she could try and figure out some sort of strategy while she drove towards the meeting point: the parking of a road-side restaurant.

Parked there she saw Junya's light blue S18. The guy was leaning against it while he waited for everyone.

'Hello,' she greeted him climbing out of her car, 'I'm not late, am I?'

'No,' he said, 'you're in fact earlier than I thought you'd be.'

'Why is that?' she asked trying to sound neutral.

'You're a girl,' Junya replied honestly, 'and girls are notoriously unpunctual.'

'Not all of them,' Kizuna countered.

'I'm glad to hear that,' Junya said.

She was trying to come up with something to say when they heard three other cars getting into the car park: the two RZ-1s and Izawa's dark grey Vera. Kizuna felt her heart beat a little faster and she wasn't too sure if it was because of Izawa or because of the driver of a certain yellow Mazda.

The three cars stopped one after the other and, soon the two Takahashi brothers and Izawa climbing out of them. Akito and the girl she had saw him with at Mt Myogi were riding with Kyosuke while, out of the white RZ-1, Kizuna saw a girl with glossy, perfectly styled medium-length hair wearing a ridiculously expensive dress and a pair of Italian high heel shoes.

'Hello there!' Seisuke greeted everyone.

'Hi,' Kizuna replied.

'Is that her?' the girl with the dress asked glancing at her in a way which Kizuna didn't like.

'Yes,' Seisuke confirmed, 'Kizuna, meet my girlfriend Kaori.'

'Hi,' Kizuna repeated forcing herself to smile.

'She does look like a racer,' Kaori commented with an almost patronising tone.

'She's so cool,' the other, younger girl added walking towards Kizuna, 'hi,' she said grinning at her in a way which made her look even cuter, 'I'm Takahashi Ryoko, it's really nice to finally meet you. My cousins have nothing but nice things to say about you.'

'They're probably exaggerating,' Kizuna said, this time smiling without making an effort.

'No we're not,' Kyosuke countered.

'Hi!' Izawa exclaimed being unnecessarily loud.

'Kazuya will be late,' Junya informed everyone ignoring Izawa, 'Uncle Masaki got him involved in one of his functions but he told me he'll try and sneak out as soon as he can. He asked me to say he's sorry about it.'

'It's okay,' Kyosuke said.

'So,' Akito intervened speaking for the first time, 'where are they?'

'It's still early,' Kyosuke commented glancing at his wristwatch.

'In that case,' Ryoko proposed, 'why don't we wait for them having some coffee?'

Kyosuke was about to agree when they heard the engines of several cars coming their way and, turning round, they saw four vehicles driving down the road at a considerably high speed. Ahead of them, there was a red Vera with some of the same TRD parts Izawa had used on his Toyota, the car was so shiny that it looked like it had just been airbrushed.

'Nice,' Izawa muttered.

Behind the Vera, they saw a fairly new black Honda NSX RR, a white Mitsubishi Lan EVO X which looked rather old and a little battered and a dark green Nissan S17 with a rather large black spoiler attached at the back of it. They all waited until the red Vera came to a full stop to park the other three cars next to it.

'Oh how scary,' Seisuke said sounding everything but scared.

Out of the red Vera, they saw a tall guy with very short black hair who glanced over at the Golden Arrows, smiling when he saw Kyosuke there. He didn't move from where he was until his friends were all out of their rides. Only then, the four street racers made their way towards them.

'Hello,' the short haired guy said, 'I'm Ikeda Masato.'

'Hi,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'm…'

'We know who you are,' one of Masato's friends said brushing his long bangs off his face. He was the one driving the NSX and, with a cat-like smile, he said, 'I'm Watanabe Eiji, it's a real honour to finally meet you.'

'Well…'

'Why did you bring _that_ with you?' one of the two still unnamed racers said, he was dressed as carelessly as he obviously treated his poor Mitsubishi. Everyone saw that he was telling off his friend because he had just started playing with a portable videogames console, looking as if he did that all the time.

'Kei,' Masato warned him, 'leave him alone,' then, he glanced at Kyosuke apologetically and, pointing at the guy playing videogames, he said, 'this is Takaki Yuta, he's…'

'...a weirdo,' Kei finished for him, 'seriously Yuta, go and leave that thing back in your car or I'll smash it up.'

'But…'

'Now,' Kei insisted. The guy called Yuta made a face which looked as if parting with the console would cause him physical pain but, seeing that Kei was getting ready to deliver his threat, he reluctantly rushed back to his S17 while everyone else observed the scene trying very hard not to burst out laughing.

'Anyway,' Masato spoke pointing at Kei, 'he's Kitamura Kei, our uphill specialist.'

'Hello,' Kei said still keeping an eye on what Yuta did, looking happy only when he saw the other guy closing the door of his Silvia and walk back towards them empty handed and with a gloomy expression on his face.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said deciding it was safe to intervene, 'since you seem to know who we are, what do you think if we discuss how we're going to decide who races who and in which order?'

'That sounds good,' Masato agreed.

'Perfect,' Kyosuke said, 'since it's five of us and only four of you, I think it'd be fairer if we leave it to fate so, we could shuffle our driving licenses and you guys can pick them out randomly to decide who you'll race.'

'We'll have four races, right?' Masato asked.

'Yes,' Kyosuke said, 'we'll go with a down-up-down-up pattern and whichever team gets more wins, well…'

'I get the picture,' Masato interrupted him.

'In that case,' Kyosuke said, 'let's get on with it.'

With this, he turned round to face the other four members of the Golden Arrows present there and, one by one, he collected all the driving licenses, smiling when he took Kizuna's international one. He then put them all inside a small manila envelope he'd prepared for the occasion.

'Alright,' he said passing it to Masato, 'it's up to you now.'

Masato took the envelope and, putting his hand inside without looking at it, he pulled one of the licenses out and after taking a look at the picture in it he smiled at Izawa who pointed at himself and said:

'Me?'

'Yep,' Masato replied, 'what do you drive?'

'That,' Izawa said pointing at his dark grey Vera.

'Oh,' Masato said, his smile widening, 'this must be destiny.'

Izawa nodded his agreement.

Junya made an impatient sound with his mouth which prompted Eiji to take the envelope from his friend. With an unnecessary flourishy movement, he introduced his hand into the envelope and, smiling, he pulled it out taking a quick look at the card. Still grinning, he looked at Seisuke and said:

'You're the lucky one.'

'You have no idea,' the youngest of the Takahashi brothers countered.

'Give me that,' Kei said grabbing the first license he found which turned out to be Junya's. The two guys looked at each other as if they had already started assessing each other's driving abilities producing so much tension between the two of them that poor Yuta nearly forgot that he had to make the last extraction.

'Oh,' he gasped, 'wow…'

'What?' Masato asked him, 'who did you get?'

'Her,' Yuta replied pointing at Kizuna.

'Sorry mate,' Masato said to Kyosuke, 'it looks like this is yours,' he added passing him the last of the driving licenses and the now empty envelope while the other three drivers also handed the other licenses to their respective owners, 'it's a pity,' Masato added, 'I would have loved to race you, no offence,' he said glancing at Izawa who quickly said:

'None taken.'

'Kyosuke,' Kizuna spoke, 'if you want, I can…'

'No,' he interrupted her, 'it's your race so go and do your thing, okay?'

'I'll do my best,' Kizuna said smiling at him.

Kyosuke smiled back at her and, for a few moments, it looked like they were lost in their own world then, Izawa cleared his throat rather loudly and, using his most cheerful tone of voice, he shouted:

'Let's race!'

_To be continued…_


	7. Chapter Six

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Six_

Less than ten minutes later, all nine vehicles got to the base of Route 62 as it climbed Mt Akagi's uphill and, just as they had pre-agreed, Masato, Izawa, Kei and Junya drove their cars up to get in position for their downhill battles. Kyosuke had also agreed with Junya that he would call him the instant all four of them got to the summit of the mountain.

'Kyosuke,' the S18 driver said, 'we're in position.'

'Alright,' the Golden Arrows leader replied, 'any problems to report?'

'None,' Junya replied, 'all clear.'

'Good,' Kyosuke said then, pressing the button, he closed the call and, looking at everyone, he added, 'we're ready to start,' he couldn't help but to notice that both Yuta and Eiji had remained separated from the group and while Eiji was paying attention to what was going on around him, Yuta had started playing videogames.

He could also see that, in his side, Seisuke and Akito were busy talking about the upcoming races while Ryoko listened in. Kaori had remained inside the white RZ-1 and seemed to be watching something on the TV the car came equipped with. Kyosuke walked towards Kizuna who was leaning against her 350Z looking very serious.

'Hey,' he said, 'you're alright?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied.

'Don't worry about the race,' he said, 'you'll do well, just remember what we've practiced.'

'I know,' Kizuna said.

Kyosuke stared at her for a short while raking his brain so that he could come up with something useful to say, because some gut feeling told him that once again something was wrong with her and, as he was slowly coming to realise, the half-American girl simply refused to let anyone else into her own problems.

'You're…' he started.

'What do you think?' Kizuna interrupted him.

'About?' Kyosuke asked her, feeling suddenly confused.

'Them,' she replied pointing at the spot where Eiji and Yuta were, 'do you think they're good?'

'I don't know,' he answered honestly, 'I haven't seen their driving but, judging by what their cars look like, I'd say that they've spent a fair amount of time on them, meaning that they're dedicated enough to deserve some level of respect.'

'I see,' Kizuna said, 'do you think Izawa will win?'

'Maybe,' Kyosuke replied, 'he has a lot of work to do when it comes to his uphill skills but, downhill, I think he's alright. It all depends on how good this Ikeda guy is, after all, they're basically driving the same car.'

'That's true,' Kizuna said looking oddly sad.

'Why are you asking?' Kyosuke asked.

'No reason,' the girl replied cryptically.

'You know,' Kyosuke said trying to joke, 'it almost looks like you want Izawa to lose.'

'What?' Kizuna asked a little too brusquely, 'of course I don't want him to lose, I just…'

'Forget it,' Kyosuke stopped her, 'I was kidding but obviously I'm not very good at it.'

The two remained silent after that and, for the umpteenth time, the Golden Arrows leader realised just how bad he was at handling this kind of situations. He now understood how the poor Akito had so much trouble talking to Ryoko before the two of them had got together and, glancing at the younger guy, he offered him a silent apology for all the times that he, together with Seisuke, had made fun of him because of it.

It really was difficult talking to the girl one liked!

Meanwhile, up at the summit, Izawa sat inside his dark grey Vera waiting for Masato to drive his own shiny red one next to it. He also stared at the bit of the road which was illuminated by his car's headlights while he tried to gather all the concentration he would need for the race.

'Hey,' he heard Junya's voice through the window.

Looking up, Izawa saw that his team mate wanted him to get the glass down and, pressing a button, he complied, getting mentally prepared for what he knew would not be the encouraging pep talk he needed.

'What's up?' Izawa asked trying to sound relaxed.

'This is your first official race as a Golden Arrow,' Junya said, 'don't screw it up.'

With that, he just walked away leaving Izawa feeling worse than ever. He barely noticed the moment when Kei stood in front of the two cars and it took every single bit of his mental power to register that it was time for him to re-start his engine. He turned the key in the ignition with a shaky hand and he felt like his stomach was slowly filling with ice-cold water, he'd never been any more scared and nervous in his life.

'READY?' Kei shouted glancing only at Masato's car then, probably getting his leader's approval, he started the countdown, 'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

Izawa tried to get the first gear in but something went wrong and he failed to get it in properly then, what was a series of mishaps turned into a major disaster when his car's engine stalled all of a sudden making him wish he were dead. Refusing to look at where Junya stood so that he wouldn't have to see the nasty scowl on the older man's face, Izawa somehow managed to get the car's engine back on, starting the race a few long seconds after Masato.

'Wow,' Kei said walking towards Junya, 'that was bad.'

The S18 driver remained silent, glaring at the corner where he could still see Izawa's Vera.

'If this is what the Golden Arrows is all about…' Kei continued, letting the sentence hang on purpose.

A furious Junya observed as his rival made his way to his old and battered EVO X, locking himself in it while he waited for the start of his own race. Feeling even angrier, Junya decided he would too get in his car so that he could wait for his turn to show Kei that the Golden Arrows were _a lot_ better than that.

Some corners ahead, the poor Izawa was desperately trying to catch up with Masato's Vera. The good thing was that he could still see the car's taillights, meaning that he still had a chance of recovery. He was also going downhill and therefore he could use up what he knew was his strongest point: brake control.

In a downhill as steep as Mt Akagi it was important that he handled the brake pedal with pinpoint precision and, trying to ignore the fact that Masato was still very far away, Izawa chose to concentrate on his own descent, making sure he cleared the corners the fastest way and using the very few straights present at this part of the course to get as close as possible to the other Vera.

His tactics paid off and, right after the mid-point of the race, Izawa was close enough to Masato's Vera to be able to read the number plate. He felt hot and he wanted to wipe the sweat off his brow but he knew that, right now, he simply could not afford to remove his hands from the steering wheel and the shifter.

In the other car, Masato looked at his rear view mirror noticing how the dark grey Vera was getting closer to him. He found that rather impressive considering the fact that, for some reason, his rival had failed to start the race at the same time as he had.

Entering what was one of the first fast right-handers, Masato tried to keep an eye on the other car to see if there was anything which Izawa did which was extraordinary enough, maybe a certain manoeuvre which had allowed Izawa to catch up with him as fast as he had but, while he watched, he saw nothing.

Frowning a little, Masato prepared himself for the next corner, a really tight, hairpin-like left-hander. He had covered that corner numerous times so he knew exactly where to brake, which gear to select and how to compensate with the throttle but, for some reason, he found himself too distracted watching Izawa.

This, or maybe something else, made him miss the correct entry point and it was nothing but sheer dumb luck which made it possible for Masato to clear the corner without crashing his Vera against the guardrail. Unfortunately, that also made it possible for Izawa to almost literally glue the front bumper of his car to the rear bumper of Masato's.

'Lucky,' Izawa muttered feeling only slightly guilty.

He had witnessed Masato's mistake from his privileged position and, finding himself unable to believe that fate would be so kind to him, he decided to make the most out of it also because they were about to enter his favourite section of the Mt Akagi's pass: the one where he could push his Vera to its limits.

Down at the base, Seisuke saw Eiji moving towards his black NSX, climbing into it as if he were already getting ready for his own race. That made him exchange a look with Akito who just shrugged and said:

'Eager to lose, I guess.'

'You sure know how to cheer me up,' a grinning Seisuke replied meaning it then, glancing at his brother, he saw that he and Kizuna were still sitting next to each other without exchanging a single word, 'those two need help.'

'They do,' Akito agreed.

'No they don't,' Ryoko said then, noticing the way her boyfriend and her cousin looked at her, she added, 'remember what I told you: stay out of it, Kyosuke has a plan and you two know well what that means.'

'Alright,' Seisuke said, 'I'll be a good boy, I promise.'

'Akito?' she then asked.

'Oh,' he gasped looking slightly horrified, 'I would _never_ dream of interfering, you know that!'

'I do,' she said smiling at him sweetly.

'Geez guys,' Seisuke complained, 'you two will make me diabetic.'

He then walked away from the two lovebirds so that he could go to his beloved RZ-1 inside of which, he could see Kaori still watching TV looking like she was bored off her mind and that made him a little worried.

'Hey,' he said opening her door, 'anything interesting on?'

'Not really,' she said, 'but it's better than nothing.'

'Kaori…'

'I know, I know,' the girl said, 'I'm here, aren't I?'

'Yes,' Seisuke replied looking serious, 'but I wish you tried to…I don't know, maybe talk to people instead of locking yourself in the car. I know that we're all car freaks in here but I'm sure you can find something to talk about, I don't know, maybe with Kizuna, she's…'

'With her?' Kaori asked him looking incredulous, 'I don't think so.'

'Kaori,' he tried again, 'she's half-American, your degree is in foreign languages, isn't it?'

'Yes,' Kaori replied, 'but…'

'So,' he continued, 'you could ask her if she wants to help you practice your English, I'm sure she'll be happy to do it and, let's face it, she can even point out where you need to improve, that's always useful, right?'

'No thanks,' Kaori said, 'I'd rather stay here.'

'Well you can't,' Seisuke said now feeling slightly angry.

'Why not?' she challenged.

'Because I need my car,' Seisuke replied, 'I do have a race, you know?'

Kaori made one of the faces he hated: the one where he knew she wasn't happy about him racing but was trying to do her best to be understanding. That specific face made him feel as if he were the one behaving like a spoilt little kid and not the other way round. Despite that, he tried to be patient:

'Kaori…'

'Alright,' the girl said getting out of the car, 'happy? I'll even go and talk to that _tomboy_ while you race.'

'Don't call her that,' Seisuke warned.

'Whatever,' Kaori said walking away from him in a way which indicated just how upset she was.

Letting a long and heavy sigh out, Seisuke frowned while he closed the passenger's door and, while he walked around the car to get to the driver's side, he heard the screeching sounds of the two Vera as they approached the final sector of the course. That made him stop half-way so that he would not miss any of it.

The two Vera came down the last straight of the course nearly side by side with Masato's red one just slightly ahead of Izawa's. The Toyota were travelling at roughly the same speed and they only had one more corner to clear, a left-hander which was favourable for Izawa who was currently on the inside.

All seven people there, even Kaori, held their breath while Masato and Izawa fought to get the front of their cars out of the turn ahead of the other. They all saw as Masato's Vera over steered a little too much making it look like he was going to miss the turning point at the apex while Izawa followed a much more orthodox line which effectively levelled his car with the shiny red one.

'Oh no,' Kyosuke heard Kizuna mutter.

Before he had the time to reply, he saw both cars leaving the corner at the same time and, with only a handful of meters ahead, it looked like there would not be a definite winner when, all of a sudden, the shiny red Vera seemed to glide forward in a rather unnatural way. It was that which allowed Masato to cross the finish line with the smallest of advantages over his rival.

Inside his dark grey Vera, Izawa was inconsolable. He felt as two tears burned in his eyes and it took every single bit of his self-control to stop himself from driving away so that he could avoid facing everyone in what he believed was the Golden Arrows first ever defeat.

'Shit,' he whispered furiously.

Junya would have a field day with him.

Utterly terrified, he somehow managed to stop his car somewhere inside the small parking area at the base of Mt Akagi's pass and, refusing to get out, he waited to see what Kyosuke would do next. He knew that the leader had every single reason to be furious at him and, for this reason he braced himself for the worst.

'Hey,' he heard Kyosuke's deep voice say, 'are you alright?'

Surprised, Izawa looked up and saw that the bleach-haired guy was looking at him with a worried frown on his face. That made him think that maybe, just maybe, he would not risk his bodily integrity if he got out and, with a very shaky hand, he unfastened his seatbelt. He then opened the door and said:

'I'm very sorry.'

'It's okay,' Kyosuke said.

Izawa noticed other people surrounding his leader: Seisuke, Kaori, Akito, Ryoko and Kizuna. He tried to avoid looking at the girl's face knowing well that if he did, he would see something in those beautiful grey eyes that he didn't want to see: pity or, worse, contempt. Slowly, he climbed out of his car bowing a little.

'I'm really sorry, everyone, I…'

'I said it's fine,' Kyosuke insisted, 'we still have three races to go.'

'That's right,' Seisuke said, 'don't worry, we won't lose again, I'll make sure of it.'

'Yes but…'

'Izawa,' Kyosuke said, 'it was your first race and it was damn close. I'm sure that you'll win the next time.'

'Next time?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied, 'what did you expect me to do? Kick you out of the team?'

'Er…'

'No way,' Seisuke said, 'it's just a mistake, even pros make mistakes, right Akito?'

'Why are you asking me?' the younger guy asked.

That made everyone smile at him in a very patronising way and Izawa felt grateful that, at least for a few minutes, the attention was focused elsewhere because that made it possible for him to look at Kizuna finding it shocking that she was smiling as happily as everyone else. Maybe he had nothing to worry about…

Masato, flanked by his two friends Eiji who had got out of his car and Yuta who was no longer playing his videogame, came towards them and, stopping in front of Izawa, he put his hand forward and smiled at him.

'Hey,' he said, 'that was a good race, thanks.'

'What, I…'

'I don't know what happened back at the start,' Masato continued, 'but you sure did well catching up. I would love to race you again, it's rare finding another Vera that's been tuned the way mine has.'

'Yeah, it is,' Izawa agreed shaking the other guy's hand briefly.

'In that case,' Masato said looking at Kyosuke, 'we might get something organised later, if that's okay.'

'Sure,' Kyosuke replied, 'but we still have three more races to go.'

'I know,' Masato said and, glancing at Eiji, he said, 'go and get ready.'

'I was born ready,' Eiji replied making a flourish with his hand. That made everyone in the Golden Arrows, especially Seisuke, raise their eyebrows as if they could not believe their ears. The youngest of the Takahashi brothers exchanged a quick but meaningful look with Akito who just grinned at him.

Soon enough, the white RZ-1 and the black NSX RR were side by side right before the imaginary line which had just been crossed by Masato and Izawa. Inside the Mazda, Seisuke was already getting ready for what he knew would be one of the most important battles in his short street racing career.

There was no way he'd lose.

Kyosuke stood in front of the two cars glancing quickly at his younger brother's car, seeing though the windscreen that Seisuke was already in full battle mode. That made him smile a little before he sobered up and, raising his arm over his head, he waited till both engines were roaring to start the countdown:

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE: GO!'

With both cars darting past him, he turned round as fast as he could to see what happened in the very important first corner of the uphill course. The smile returned to his face when he saw the white Mazda taking what Kyosuke knew was the fastest possible way to get ahead at the start of the Mt Akagi's pass.

'Good job,' he muttered to himself feeling very proud.

Knowing better than to relax, Seisuke kept the accelerator down all the way through the corner and by the time they reached the short straight, he was already travelling at over one hundred kilometres an hour. Stealing a quick glance at his rear view mirror, he saw that the NSX was right behind him. That didn't surprise him, what did was that Eiji looked like he was getting ready to attack.

'Already?' Seisuke said out loud.

Focusing back onto the road ahead of him, Seisuke readied himself to do what he did best, especially when driving uphill and making his car fly over the tarmac, he chose the lines he knew would make it difficult, if not impossible for Eiji to try and overtake him and, for the first few corners, his tactics paid off spectacularly.

Things became slightly more complicated when they started covering the fastest part of the course where the corners were wider and so was the actual road. There, Seisuke found it very hard to keep Eiji's NSX away from his Mazda to the point that just as they entered a fast right hand turn, he saw the Honda's headlights reflected on side mirror.

'No way,' Seisuke muttered.

Changing his driving line right in the middle of his entry, Seisuke just about managed to send his car into a slight drift which effectively closed the way for Eiji at least temporarily. He then needed every single bit of his throttle control skills so that the Mazda would not lose its exit speed managing to clear the corner just ahead of his opponent.

But it had been way too close.

Eiji didn't even give Seisuke time to recover and, right at the middle of a steep but straight section, he veered his Honda towards the left using one of the very few blind points Seisuke had. Knowing he didn't have many more options, Seisuke used up the speed he'd been saving up and that, once again, made it possible for him to enter the following corner still ahead.

That didn't last for long.

In fact, Eiji only waited until they had left the corner behind when, at mid-point through the following, very short straight, he used a larger than usual hard shoulder to strike the umpteenth attack. Seisuke watched with horror as the flamboyant but stupidly stubborn racer first levelled his Honda with the RZ-1 then entered the following corner way ahead of the Mazda. Not having any other choice, other than ending the race with a crash, the youngest of the Takahashi brothers was forced to relinquish his first place.

At least for now.

Meanwhile, back at the base, a still silent Kizuna watched while Seisuke's girlfriend Kaori made her way towards her with her lips curved in what she obviously thought was a friendly-ish smile. Instead, Kizuna thought that the girl seemed to be getting ready for some sort of cat-fight.

'Hi,' Kaori said in heavily accented English, 'how are you?'

Kizuna's brain, for a few long seconds, didn't even register that the girl was speaking in a different language, for this reason, she didn't understand what Kaori had just said and, in Japanese, the half-American girl said:

'What was that?'

'What?' Kaori replied, still in English, 'you don't understand your own language?'

Only then Kizuna recognised the language in which Kaori was speaking to her.

'Ah!' she gasped, 'it's English!'

'Obviously,' Kaori said dryly.

'Oh, I'm sorry,' Kizuna replied trying to sound as friendly as possible, 'it's just that I…I just…'

'It's okay,' Kaori said in Japanese, 'I just came here to practice my English because Seisuke told me to but it's very obvious to me that it's useless and, in any case, I don't even know if there's anything I could talk about with someone like you.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Kizuna asked switching back to Japanese too.

'Kaori,' Ryoko intervened, she had obviously smelled trouble, 'there's no need to be…'

'What?' Kaori challenged the younger girl, 'come on Ryoko, you hate racing as much as I do. Don't tell me you're happy with people like them?'

'I don't hate racing,' Ryoko replied defensively, 'and some of "them" happen to be my family.'

'You're such a hypocrite,' Kaori told her nastily, 'who kept complaining about the fact that her boyfriend spent more time with his stupid karts than he did with her?'

'That was before!' Ryoko finally exploded, 'and I thought you were cool with Seisuke and his racing.'

'NO!' Kaori exclaimed, 'unlike you, I'll never compromise. Seisuke knows that I hate racing more than anything and nothing he does, nothing any of you do will ever change that.'

'Then what are you doing with him?' Kizuna intervened.

'That's none of your business, Miss Half Foreigner,' Kaori spat.

'That was unnecessary,' Kyosuke finally intervened, 'Kaori, please apologise.'

'No way,' the girl said and, turning round, she walked as far away as possible from the group, looking like she would just wait until her boyfriend came back so that he could take her home. The entire group waited until she was settled to look back at Kizuna to see how the girl had taken the whole thing.

'It's alright,' she said to Kyosuke.

'No it's not,' he countered, 'she shouldn't have said that.'

'It's fine,' she insisted, 'I offended her first not understanding her English. Besides, it really isn't any of my business her relationship with Seisuke, I shouldn't have asked. I just…'

'She should not have insulted you,' Ryoko said, 'I'll go and talk to her.'

'No wait…'

'Kizuna-san,' Ryoko interrupted her, 'I won't have anyone insulting a member of my cousins' team no matter who they are. Even if you didn't understand her English, she should not have made such a racist comment. I can't accept that and, to be honest, neither should you.'

With that, the tiny girl walked towards where Kaori was and, once again, they all looked at Kizuna.

'Does she ever take a no for an answer?' the girl asked looking at Kyosuke.

'Not often,' he replied and Kizuna noticed how Akito seemed to be very interested in his shoes. Izawa decided to pretend he wasn't there while Masato bit his lip trying not to laugh. Yuta was so immersed in his videogame that he'd probably missed the entire exchange.

A few kilometres up the road, Seisuke was fighting an entirely different battle unaware of what was happening down below. To his relief, he noticed that while Eiji was very good when it came to attacking, his defence presented many flaws. Since he knew that at this point of the course there weren't any good points in which strike there was no point rushing into anything.

'Stay calm Seisuke,' he muttered to himself.

He follwed Eiji up the following corner, noticing once again how the guy left a rather large gap open. He then saw that the space widened as they left the turn and entered the next. For some reason, the longer he raced ahead, the less clean his lines were which made Seisuke realise what Eiji's problem was.

Overconfidence.

Having great defensive skills, Seisuke knew that the fastest way to get overtaken was to think that your opponent would not dare to attack you or, even worse, that you were so good that no one could pass you. That kind of attitude made it very difficult to keep the levels of concentration needed to race in a road as hard as the Mt Akagi's uphill and, as he could clearly see, that led to making mistakes.

Seisuke smiled.

All he needed to do was wait for the right occasion and that presented itself when, at long last, they finished climbing the steepest part of the road and reached the small plateau which would take them to the end of the course.

Making sure he kept close to the NSX, knowing that the engine of this specific version was slower than that of the RZ-1 when it came to sudden increases in speed. This meant that, if Eiji pushed it at the same time as Seisuke floored it, the Mazda would have a definite advantage.

At the last useful straight of the course, Seisuke veered rather brusquely towards the right and at the same time, he increased the pressure on the throttle pedal. Eiji, taken by surprise reacted just as late as Seisuke expected and, before the guy could even think of pressing the accelerator, Seisuke already had his car levelled with the Honda.

Just a little more and he would win the race.

_To be continued…_


	8. Chapter Seven

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Seven_

Even though there were only a few metres ahead of them and it was becoming clear that he would cross the line first, Seisuke knew that Eiji would not give up quite so easily. In fact, he had just completed that thought when the Honda driver did one last desperate move by veering towards Seisuke's Mazda clearly trying to leave Seisuke with no option but to brake.

He didn't.

Instead, Seisuke pressed the accelerator even further down, fighting the urge to close his eyes as he pushed his way into the impossibly narrow space left by the NSX. He knew that if he miscalculated the trajectory he would end up crashing against either the Honda or the guardrail but Seisuke wanted to show Eiji that he too could be just as stubborn as he obviously was.

Seisuke's overloaded brain barely registered the moment when, at long last, both cars crossed the finish line. Unfortunately, both cars were so close that even he wasn't sure who'd won the race, for this reason, he climbed out of the car the instant he managed to stop it and rushing towards Junya, he asked:

'Who's won?'

'You have,' Kei replied a little grumpily.

'Really?' Seisuke asked sounding surprised.

'Yeah,' Eiji replied climbing out of his car, 'you were about half a car ahead, didn't you notice?'

'No,' Seisuke admitted, 'I was…'

'Very busy,' Junya said smirking, 'we saw.'

'You sure are stubborn,' Eiji complained.

'Look who's talking,' Seisuke accused, 'geez man, I only know one guy who is more stubborn than you are.'

'Your brother?' Eiji asked.

'No,' Seisuke replied, 'Fujiwara Akito.'

'Anyway,' Junya intervened, 'I heard Izawa lost his race.'

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied, 'he did really well…'

Kei's loud snort interrupted him and that made Seisuke stare at him with a confused look on his face. Before he had the time to ask any questions, the EVO X driver just walked away from him to go back to his car, he then opened the door and, just before he climbed into it, he glanced at Junya and said:

'It's our turn.'

'Finally,' Junya agreed.

Seisuke and Eiji were quick to move their cars away from the road while the white Mitsubishi lined up next to the light blue Nissan S18. Seisuke then got back out of his RZ-1 to go and stand in front of the two cars. Then, copying what his older brother had done before, Seisuke raised his arm and shouted the countdown.

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

The second downhill race started right then and, Seisuke watched in amazement while Junya slowed down fractionally thus forcing Kei to overtake him. He smiled and shook his head thinking that, for some reason, Junya had decided to make things difficult for himself from the very start: he meant business.

'Why did he do that?' Eiji asked him.

'I don't know,' Seisuke lied.

'I don't get it,' Eiji continued.

'You don't have to,' Seisuke said and, with this, he walked away from his opponent so that he could go back inside his Mazda and where he would wait until the end of the last uphill battle. He felt really unlucky that he was on his own and pulled out his phone so that he could call someone. He then saw that he had quite a few missed calls as well as a text, all from his girlfriend Kaori.

The message said:

"_I want to go home now. Come down the instant you finish playing."_

Seisuke could not believe his eyes and, angrily, he threw his handset onto the passenger's seat, determined to just ignore it. Kaori seriously should know better than to tell him what to do! For this reason and even though he was dying to join the rest of the crowd, he decided to stay there until all the races were over.

Some corners ahead, Junya had a smile on his face while he watched Kei missing yet another ideal braking point. So far, he had not had any problems keeping up with the old EVO X despite the fact that Kei seemed to be pushing the poor thing as fast as it could go but since he kept messing up with his braking, he was losing a lot of time picking speed up and applying small corrections to his racing line.

The only thing Junya found challenging in this whole affair was that, as the race went on, he kept feeling tempted to brake at the same time as Kei as if some subconscious instinct instructed him to stay away from the EVO X. He of course knew that the best way to do that was to overtake the Mitsubishi as soon as he could and, then, show the guy how the Golden Arrows _really_ raced down Mt Akagi.

While this happened, Ryoko was trying to reason with a very upset Kaori:

'I'll say it again,' the older girl said, 'there's no way I'll apologise to that tomboy.'

'Kaori,' Ryoko insisted, 'I don't care if you think I'm a hypocrite but what you said to Kizuna-san is unbelievably rude, even more so because we've just met her. I don't want to think of what Seisuke will…'

'Where is he anyway?' Kaori asked looking up the road tapping her foot impatiently, 'I've called him a thousand times!'

'You called him _during_ his race?' Ryoko asked her sounding incredulous.

'Of course,' Kaori replied, 'I even texted him too.'

'Are you nuts?' Ryoko asked her meaning it.

Kaori gave her a dry laugh before saying:

'He always races with his phone in silent mode, it's not like I'm bothering him or anything.'

'That's not the point,' Ryoko insisted, 'you should know better than to disturb him while he's trying to concentrate and even if his phone is in silent mode, he'll still feel the vibrations, won't he?'

'No,' Kaori said, 'he has them off too. But that's not important, what's important is that I want to go home and he's not here yet. I will have words with him when…'

'Kaori,' Ryoko interrupted her, 'you might have failed to notice that the Golden Arrows are in the middle of a challenge, I seriously don't think Seisuke is going to leave his team to go and take you home just because you feel like it.'

'He will,' Kaori retorted.

'He won't,' Ryoko countered.

'He…'

'You really don't get it, do you?' Ryoko asked her, 'Seisuke is a racer. You said that I used to complain about the fact that Akito spent more time racing than with me but, you know? I understand the reason why he does that and it's because racing makes him feel something which nothing, including me, can match.'

'And that's alright with you?' Kaori asked sceptically.

'Yes,' Ryoko replied using a firm tone, 'because while I know that, I also know that he's with me because he wants to and that whenever we're together, he focuses all his energies into making me as happy as he can.'

'And that's good enough for you?' Kaori said still refusing to believe her.

'Yes,' the younger girl repeated, 'the alternative is that we're not together at all and that is something which I would really hate. So, if those are the two options I have, then I'd rather be with him under his own terms. Think about it Kaori, Seisuke is more popular with girls than I care to admit yet, he's with you. I think you should be grateful for that and stop behaving like a spoilt little girl.'

'Look who's talking,' Kaori said.

'I've never denied being a spoilt little girl,' Ryoko said, 'but I've decided not to act like one. That's the difference between me and you Kaori. Now, it's entirely up to you if you want to start being reasonable or you want to risk losing Seisuke forever.'

'He wouldn't…'

'He will,' Ryoko countered, 'you made him choose between you and racing and you already lost that battle once. Don't you think this time round you'll be much more successful. If I were you, I'd swallow a little bit of pride and I'd go to apologise to Kizuna-san because whether you like her or not, she is _his_ team mate.'

'I…'

'Kaori,' Ryoko said, 'I'm right and you know it.'

The older girl looked at her for a brief instant then, seeing that Ryoko was leaving very little room for negotiation, she decided to get up from the guardrail on which she was sitting and, with an impatient gesture, she started walking towards where the rest of the group were. Ryoko smiled a little before she followed her cousin's girlfriend.

From the other side of the car park, Kizuna watched while Kaori made her way towards her. She also saw Ryoko a few steps behind. The half-American girl frowned and, glancing at Kyosuke, she smirked and said:

'Should I hide?'

Kyosuke just smiled a little and, like the rest of the people there, waited to see what happened.

'Kizuna-san,' they all heard Kaori say with a very forced tone of voice, 'I'm sorry for what I said earlier.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said carefully, 'it's okay, I'm sorry about not understanding your English and…'

'Was it that bad?' Kaori asked her clearly challenging her.

'No,' Kizuna hurried to reply, 'it's just that I'm no longer used to hearing people speak in English and I wasn't expecting it. Also, I shouldn't have asked anything about you and Seisuke, I don't usually mind other people's business.'

Kaori didn't reply to that, instead, she looked at Ryoko who stood there as though as she was supervising the whole exchange. The two girls exchanged a look and then, the younger one smiled and said:

'See, it wasn't that difficult, was it?'

'You're impossible,' Kaori complained.

'I know,' Ryoko countered still smiling.

Kizuna observed the two girls while biting her lower lip so that she would not smile too and right then, she decided that while she and Kaori would probably never see eye to eye, she really liked Ryoko and, for the first time in her whole life, she found herself contemplating the chance of becoming good friends with a girl.

Uphill the two cars had just gone past the mid-point of the race and were quickly reaching the part of the course where Junya knew there were at least two or three different points in which he could stage an attack. Not that he needed so many, he felt very confident that he could overtake Kei with just one try.

It was then when Kei's driving started getting erratic.

Junya failed to notice at first but, while he got closer to the Mitsubishi, he realised the reason why the car was in such poor condition when, entering a particularly tight right hander, Kei hit the bumper of his car against the guardrail. The kamikaze-like manoeuvre allowed him to clear the corner faster than it should have been possible and, using his obviously advanced throttle control, he even managed to exit the turn without losing any of that speed.

'What the…' an utterly shocked Junya muttered.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm down a little so that his brain could devise the new strategy he now needed all the while increasing his own pace to try and make up for the EVO X's extra speed. Junya was man enough to admit that he had definitely not foreseen this new development and that Kei was actually good.

Too good.

Quickly remembering the reason why he was the Golden Arrows downhill ace, Junya started driving seriously and, in no time, the gap between the two cars was back to nearly zero. Then, not wanting to waste any extra time, he decided to take Kei by surprise and, at the very next corner, a very wide left-hander, knowing that Kei would probably try and pull the same trick again, he veered towards the outside of the turn while the Mitsubishi did the opposite.

Junya knew that he would only have one chance to pull it off so, forgetting about the brake, he adjusted the gears and then, he applied as much strength as he could onto the accelerator launching his car forward at what effectively was a downright insane speed. He didn't think he'd gone as fast as that before.

Thankfully for him, the manoeuvre paid off and, as they continued along the straight, he saw that he was leaving the white car behind. Not giving himself the time to think about it, he focused his energies back onto the following corner, already trying to decide the best way to negotiate it. From then on, he would be ahead and that meant that, at long last, he would be able to impose the rhythm.

It was only that which allowed for Junya to stay ahead for the following corners and, by the time they got to the last, left-hand turn, he saw that the Mitsubishi's headlights were far enough for him to be able to breath a little easier. It had been one hell of a race, the kind of challenge Junya hadn't got ever since he'd raced against Kyosuke Takahashi.

At any rate, he'd won the battle.

Right at that moment, with the two cars still slowing down, the people at the base saw Kazuya's red Civic getting into the parking area, stopping his Honda and climbing out of it just as his cousin's S18 and the white EVO X were proceeding slowly into the car park.

'What did I miss?' he asked Kyosuke.

'I don't even know where to start,' the Golden Arrows leader replied.

He didn't have to because, right at that instant, they saw Junya ignoring everyone so that he could go and find Izawa who was currently standing near his Vera talking to Masato about some new TRD parts he'd seen in a magazine. The poor guy didn't even have the time to notice Junya's arrival when the guy hissed at him:

'You lost?'

'Er…'

'You shouldn't be in this team,' Junya said furiously.

'Junya!' Kyosuke exclaimed.

He then rushed towards the three racers followed by the newly arrived Kazuya, Akito and Kizuna. The other two girls decided to remain where they were while Yuta, who no longer was playing with his videogame, was joined by Kei both looking very interested to see what was happening now.

'Kyosuke,' Junya said, 'you should have seen what he did!'

'He lost,' Kyosuke countered, 'so what? Losing is part of racing and you know that very well.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Junya asked him angrily.

'You know what he means,' Kazuya said, 'or do I need to remind you of your first race ever?'

'Shut up,' Junya barked.

'At any rate,' Kyosuke said, 'we still have one more race to go, right Kizuna?'

'Right,' the girl replied with as much conviction as she could manage. Having just seen Junya's reaction to Izawa's loss she was beginning to get rather nervous herself and, while she made her way to her dark grey Nissan, she started praying for all that was holy that she would score her first win as a Golden Arrows.

A few minutes later, they were all ready for the fourth and final race of the Challenge for Mt Akagi. Izawa still looked like he wanted to disappear, while an angry Junya had locked himself in his car. Kaori and Ryoko were now sitting together and Akito was just watching what was going on. Kei and Masato were talking about his own loss while Kyosuke asked Kazuya if he wanted to be the countdown man.

'Hey,' he said trying to be positive, 'at least you get to do something.'

'How generous of you,' Kazuya replied with a smirk then, he said, 'it sucks being me.'

Kyosuke returned the smirk and, a couple of seconds later, he watched as his ex-classmate stood in front of the dark grey 350Z driven by Kizuna and the dark green S17 driven by Yuta who looked every bit as excited as he did while playing one of his videogames. The Golden Arrows leader wondered silently if the guy would be as skilful driving as he obviously was playing videogames.

For Kizuna's sake, he hoped he wouldn't.

Soon, the roaring sound coming from both Nissan's engines filled the base of the mountain pass. Because of this Kazuya lifted his left arm up and, speaking up as loudly as he could, he commenced the countdown:

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

Kizuna's car took off slightly ahead of Yuta's and, by the time they got into the first corner, she was ahead. Kyosuke noticed with immense pride that the practices the two had done at the Centre had made it possible for Kizuna to improve her driving so much that she cleared the turn in a flawless manner.

'She's good,' Akito commented.

'She is,' Kyosuke agreed feeling even prouder.

Meanwhile, Kizuna was concentrated on the road ahead. She knew it was important for her to increase the gap as quickly as possible now that they were covering the fastest part of the course because it was there that one could overtake without risking too much. Kizuna knew that and, she suspected, so did Yuta.

She felt very grateful for Kyosuke's pointers while the two had been training together and just seeing how much more smoothly she negotiated the corners made her realised that she had indeed got better. It was also the fact that she had grown used to driving a car with the steering wheel in the right and that she had discovered that for her, who was a southpaw, it was much easier to change gears with her dominant hand.

Driving ahead was also another advantage she had.

Not worrying about what the opponent did behind her, she was free to drive the way she thought suited her 350Z best keeping a more or less steady pressure on the accelerator, slowing down fractionally when it was strictly necessary. She knew that the sixteen year old engine took a long time to recover if she decreased the speed too much and she also knew enough about the S17 turbocharged engine to know that it had a definite advantage over her Nissan.

Everything went rather well for Kizuna all the way until the intersection with the other road which formed the pass but, just as she expected, the instant both cars got onto the steeper part of the course, the S17 started getting closer. Breathing as evenly as she could, Kizuna forced herself to stay calm for, now more than ever, she needed a cool head.

One corner after the other and while the two cars approached their target, Kizuna saw that Yuta's car was nearly stuck to her rear bumper. She knew that the V6 roaring under the hood could probably give her a little more power if she asked for it but, again, the engine was also getting old and the last thing she could afford right now was to blow it up so she decided to keep her current speed.

That decision seemed to pay off because they reached the top of the mountain with Kizuna still firmly on the lead. Despite that, the girl knew that getting too confident now would be a serious mistake, for this reason, she entered the final sector of the course focusing even harder on her driving. She even stopped paying attention to her rear view mirror and that's the reason why she didn't see Yuta flashing his headlights at her.

Then, out of the blue, she saw something crossing the road.

Slamming the brakes, she then tried to veer in an evasive manoeuvre all the while hoping Yuta's reflexes were fast enough to avoid crashing against her. She felt her heart go all the way up her throat and her ears started ringing while everything around her seemed to slow down.

A few interminably long seconds later, it was over.

She had managed to avoid hitting whatever it was that had decided to appear in the middle of the road, her car was still in one piece but, unfortunately for her, Yuta's S17 was right ahead of her going way too fast for her to hope to catch up with him. The race ended just a few moments later and Kizuna felt two tears of frustration rolling down her cheeks. She could not believe that she had lost the race in such a stupid way.

'Oh no,' she muttered shakily.

Kizuna didn't even want to think of what would happen to her the moment Junya found out and, her brain simply refused to process anything involving Kyosuke. Right now, she was so furious at herself that she could not think of anything else. Somehow, she managed to stop her car next to Seisuke's RZ-1 who was already out of it waiting for her; she was surprised to see that the guy looked genuinely worried.

'Are you okay?' he asked her the instant she got out of her car.

'Yeah,' she muttered.

'That wasn't fair,' Yuta announced walking towards them followed by Eiji, 'I want to race again.'

'What happened?' Seisuke asked him.

'There was some animal,' the guy replied, 'I saw it coming from down the mountain but I don't think she had the time to see it. I tried warning her but she probably didn't notice. It was awfully nice of her to give me enough space to pass her without crashing against her ride.'

'I didn't do any such thing,' Kizuna denied.

'You didn't?' Yuta asked her looking confused.

'No,' she confirmed, 'I just tried to avoid whatever that was. I didn't have the time to think of anything else.'

'Ah,' Yuta gasped frowning a little, 'it doesn't matter,' he then decided, 'it still was…'

'No,' Seisuke interrupted him, 'the same thing happened to me during my first race. It's bound to happen when we race in mountain passes such as this one. I'm really, really sorry Kizuna,' he said, 'but I think that the race's result is final.'

'I know,' she said looking very sad.

'Hey,' Eiji intervened passing his arm around her shoulders, 'you're too cute to look this sad!'

Kizuna looked up at the guy's face and, hoping she wasn't being too rude, she removed from his grasp as fast as she could then she watched as Seisuke got his phone and pressed the autodial to presumably call his older brother. When she heard him give the news to Kyosuke, she felt like she wanted to die all over again.

'She was doing so well…' she somehow heard Yuta saying to Eiji.

Back down at the base, Kyosuke closed the call looking more sombre than ever. It was with a heavy heart that he looked at everyone there and, speaking as firmly as he could, he made the announcement:

'It's a tie.'

'What do you mean?' Kazuya asked him.

'Kizuna's lost,' he replied, he was going to open his mouth again when he saw Izawa rushing towards his Vera, climbing into it and, even before he could think of protesting, the guy was already driving up the road. It took every ounce of his self-control not to jump into his own ride so that he could follow his team mate.

'What do we do now?' Masato asked him.

'Er…'

'Why don't you do a time attack?' Akito suggested.

'Oh,' Kazuya said, 'that sounds like a good idea.'

'What do you think?' Kyosuke asked Masato.

'The fastest wins, right?' he asked back.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied impatiently. He really was dying to go after Izawa.

'Alright,' Masato said, 'who goes first?'

Kyosuke wanted to shout he had to leave at that instant but, being the courteous person he was and knowing well that there was a racing etiquette to follow, he pulled a coin out of the pocket of his trousers and, throwing it up on the air, he made it land on top of the palm of his left hand while he covered it with his right one.

'Heads or tails?' he asked Masato.

'Heads,' Masato replied.

Thankfully for Kyosuke's sanity, it was tails. He was going to run to his car when he felt Kazuya's hand on his arm making him stop. He went to glare at his ex-classmate when the guy shook his head and said:

'You'll have to wait a bit,' Kazuya said.

'Why?' Kyosuke nearly barked.

'Izawa's just gone up,' he observed, 'he'll get in the way.'

Kyosuke couldn't tell Kazuya that he was right in so many levels that it scared him. He really had never felt like he was feeling right now and, with a pang, he realised that he was jealous, and afraid, and a number of other things which made him wish he could forget about the challenge and drive up as fast as he could.

'I'll call my guys,' Masato said, 'we should get them ready to start timing the minute you take off.'

'Alright,' a very impatient Kyosuke said. He then took his own phone back out of his pocket and pressed the redial button to call his younger brother, 'Seisuke,' he said, 'we're going to do a time-attack but Izawa just started driving up. Call me the instant he gets there, okay?'

'Sure,' Seisuke said, 'why is he coming up?'

'No idea,' Kyosuke lied unable to tell him the truth with so many people there watching.

A few long minutes later, Seisuke called to say that Izawa had made it to the top and finally running out of patience, he ran towards his car. Not surprisingly, he was gone just a few instants later, driving so fast that even those who were used to his seeing his driving stood there watching with their mouths agape.

With one single thought fixed in his mind, Kyosuke kept pushing his poor Mazda up the road, hoping that Izawa would not have the time to talk to Kizuna before he did. He simply could not think straight whenever she was involved and that made him realise just how much he had come to care about the girl.

'Come on,' he literally begged the rotary engine.

Needless to say, having such a strong incentive made it possible for Kyosuke to break his own uphill record which already was awfully close to the one set many years ago by his own father. Unfortunately for him, it still wasn't fast enough and by the time he got to the summit, both Izawa and Kizuna were gone.

'Where's she?' he asked Seisuke not caring about anything.

'They walked up the road,' his younger brother replied, 'I tried to stop…'

Seisuke didn't have the time to finish the sentence and could only watch his older brother while he ran uphill. He hoped Kyosuke would make it in time because he knew that Izawa was very likely messing up with his plans. Seisuke was also slightly upset that Kizuna had not had the good sense to refuse when Izawa had come begging her to let him talk to her on their own.

'Silly, silly girl,' he muttered.

Meanwhile, Kyosuke finally found the spot where Izawa and Kizuna were. The two were looking over the cliff giving their back to him when he heard the girl's voice speaking gently but firmly:

'…I'm sorry Izawa, but I'm not interested in dating anyone at the moment. I can't afford any distractions if…'

He found himself taking a few steps backwards and, before any of the two people there could notice him, he started running back to where Seisuke and the other two racers were. He felt so horrible about what he'd just heard that he didn't even care when, a few minutes later, Masato failed to get the final victory for his team. Right now, Kyosuke found it difficult to enjoy the fact that the Golden Arrows had won yet again.

_To be continued…_


	9. Chapter Eight

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Eight_

When Kizuna and Izawa got back down and joined the other five racers Kyosuke tried so hard to ignore them that he even refrained from offering the girl a comforting word for her loss. He only pretended to pay attention while Masato told him that he, Eiji and Yuta were going to join Kei at the base so that they could all drive back home.

'It's been a great race,' the guy commented, 'too bad that you've beaten us!'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke said distractedly.

'Well,' Masato said frowning a little, 'we'll go now, we'll see you around.'

'Sure,' Kyosuke replied.

The guy walked back to his red Vera and, very soon, both black NSX and dark green S17 were seen driving downhill, leaving only Seisuke, Kizuna and Izawa there with Kyosuke. The Golden Arrows leader avoided looking at any of them and, turning round, he too made his way towards his RZ-1.

'Aniki…'

'Not now,' Kyosuke ordered.

'Alright,' Seisuke said.

'Let's get back down,' Kyosuke added, trying to be a little gentler.

'Alright,' Seisuke repeated and, only then, he looked at Izawa and Kizuna noticing how both of them looked so utterly depressed that he was, very slowly, beginning to understand what had just happened. The only piece missing in the puzzle was what had made his older brother so upset but that would have to wait until both of them got back home. For this reason, he copied his brother and went to climb into his own car.

'Kizuna…' Izawa started.

'We should follow them,' the girl interrupted him.

'Okay,' he agreed.

A couple of minutes later, both Mazda, the Nissan 350Z and the Toyota Vera were driving down the road, with Kizuna's brain invaded by a whirl of emotions. She had experienced yet another bitter defeat and she felt horrible about having hurt Izawa because in spite of the guy's promise to stay good friends, she knew that her relationship with Izawa would never be the same again.

She was also very confused about Kyosuke's cold attitude towards her. She didn't really know what to think and, a large part of her hoped that he was just angry at her for losing the battle, even though deep down she knew that Kyosuke would not be as petty as that. Yet again, there wasn't any other reason for him to be angry, unless he was angry at her for having gone to talk with Izawa by herself.

'Of course not, idiot,' Kizuna muttered.

Maybe something had happened during the challenge completely unrelated to her that she wasn't aware of. That would probably explain Kyosuke's attitude much better than any stupid romantic notion of hers, no matter how self-flattering it was because there was no way someone like Kyosuke could want to be anything other than friends with someone like her.

Kizuna was so focused on her own thoughts that she even forgot about the fact that there was someone else in their team with every reason to be less than happy about the results of two of the four races. She was quickly reminded of it when, entering the car park, she saw Junya standing in front of his S18.

'Oh no,' she whispered.

Swallowing hard, she stopped her Nissan and not wanting to postpone the inevitable, she climbed out of the car while both the Takahashi brothers and Izawa did the same. She didn't even try to defend herself knowing that she probably deserved whatever Junya said, no matter how nasty.

'So,' he said dryly, 'you two lost your races…'

'Yes,' Kizuna said before anyone could reply, 'I'm very sorry about that.'

'Well,' Junya continued, 'I'm not going to say that I expected anything else. It was your first official race and let's face it, you two still have a lot of work to do. Considering how we've ended up winning the challenge, I'll let it pass but, for your own good you…'

'I'll quit,' Izawa announced.

'What?' Kizuna could not help but to ask.

'You obviously don't want me in the team,' Izawa said talking to Junya and purposely ignoring Kizuna, 'I know I'm the worst of you all so, what's the point of me staying if I'm only going to hold you back?'

'Izawa…'

'Kizuna,' he said, 'you know that it's the best option we have.'

'I don't agree,' Kyosuke suddenly said and ignoring the many pair of eyes which focused on him, he added, 'if you're going to quit our team, you'd better just quit racing altogether.'

'Aniki…'

'I don't want anyone in this team to think for a minute that we will never lose a race,' Kyosuke said raising his voice a little, 'because it's the fact that we might lose which makes us train harder and become better. A very wise man once said that the day you get too confident behind the wheel is the day you need to quit racing so, if anyone here feels they'll never lose, I want them to leave now.'

'Are you serious?' Junya asked him.

'Extremely,' Kyosuke replied.

'Okay,' Junya said.

'So,' Kyosuke added still looking at him, 'are you in, or are you out?'

Junya appeared to think about it for a short while then he made a scowl and said:

'I'm in, of course I'm in.'

'What about all of you?' Kyosuke said looking at everyone around him.

'Do you even need to ask?' Seisuke replied with a smirk.

'I'm in, always,' Kazuya said.

Kizuna waited until Izawa spoke. Instead, the guy looked at her with an inquisitive look on his face to which she replied with a simple nod. Izawa then looked at Kyosuke and, using a firm tone of voice, he said:

'I'm in, if you guys want me here.'

'We do,' Kyosuke replied just as resolutely, 'Kizuna?' he then asked her.

'I don't want to leave,' she just said, 'but I know I'll need to work on my skills a lot more.'

'We'll be happy to help,' a grinning Seisuke said, 'won't we Aniki?'

'Of course we will,' Kyosuke replied staring at her with such intensity that it made Kizuna look away.

'Okay,' Kazuya said, 'now that this is settled, we should go home.'

'Yes,' Junya agreed.

The group watched while the two cousins got onboard their rides and, very soon, both cars drove out of the parking area and got on their way to their respective homes in Maebashi. Right after that, Izawa also announced that he was going home.

'Thanks for today,' he said to Kyosuke, 'I'll work hard to become a better racer.'

'Okay,' Kyosuke said.

The guy climbed into his Vera and drove off too. Kizuna then noticed how the atmosphere got even heavier all of a sudden and, for some reason, it made her feel like her presence was no longer needed. For this reason, she took out the key to her 350Z and was about to speak when Kyosuke asked:

'You're leaving?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied.

'Okay,' he said then, looking like he was trying to force himself to smile, he added, 'are you going to come to the Centre tomorrow?'

'I don't know, I…'

'Fine,' he interrupted a tad too brusquely, 'just let me know when you're free.'

Kizuna simply nodded and, after that, she walked back to her car without giving herself too much time to think about the gut feeling which told her that something was wrong with Kyosuke and that, somehow, it had something to do with her. Thinking about that made her feel so confused that it was best to just stop it.

It was only when the two Takahashi brothers were left alone with Akito, Ryoko and Kaori that Seisuke said:

'You guys go ahead, Kaori and I have something to talk about.'

'Okay,' Kyosuke replied.

'But don't go to bed,' Seisuke asked him, 'I need to talk to you too.'

'Seisuke…'

'Please Aniki,' he insisted, 'it's important.'

'Fine,' Kyosuke replied. He then watched while Seisuke and Kaori both walked away from them then, just as he turned round towards his car, he felt Ryoko's hand onto his arm. Taking a deep breath, he looked at her and said, 'not now, please, it…'

'It's okay,' Ryoko said, 'I know you're going to tell me that everything is under control, right?'

'Kind of,' Kyosuke replied with a tiny smile.

'Okay,' Ryoko said then, removing her hand, she glanced at Akito and said, 'why don't you come home with us?'

'Er…I kind of have to,' he replied, 'considering it's your cousin who's giving us a ride.'

'I know that silly,' Ryoko said laughing softly, 'but I thought you'd ask Kyosuke to take you straight home.'

'Well, that was the original plan,' Akito said then, 'because if not he'll have to give me a ride back home later and…'

'Akito,' Kyosuke said, this time with a bigger smile on his face, 'don't worry about it, if you want to come home with us, I'll make sure I take you home whenever you're ready. Like you've just heard, I need to stay up anyway.'

'Are you sure?' Akito asked.

'Get in the car,' Kyosuke said letting out a soft chuckle, 'and don't worry, I'll even keep Uncle Keisuke distracted while you're with Ryoko.'

'Kyosuke,' Akito said looking very serious, 'you're my _best_ friend.'

'I know,' Kyosuke replied.

The three got in the car and Kyosuke drove off leaving his younger brother's RZ-1 behind while Seisuke had started confronting Kaori about the message she'd sent him during his race and, trying to remain as calm as possible, he pulled his phone and, showing its display to her, he asked:

'What's the meaning of this?'

'Er…'

'Because, you know?' he continued, 'if I didn't know better, it looks like you were trying to order me around.'

'I…'

'Kaori,' he continued, 'next time you want to _ask_ me something, remember to add a "please" somewhere.'

'What?' she gasped, 'Seisuke…'

'Look,' he carried on, 'you know how I feel about people telling me what to do so, obviously something happened that made you so upset to make you forget something as important as that. So, what was it?'

'Nothing,' she replied, 'I…I was just tired.'

'Really?' Seisuke challenged.

'Yes,' Kaori replied, 'I…you know I don't enjoy these races and…'

'Not that again,' Seisuke complained.

'Listen to me,' she said, 'please,' she quickly added, 'I think that we need to reach some sort of agreement. Don't force me to come to your challenges and I won't complain about them.'

'You don't want to come to the races?' he asked her.

'No,' Kaori replied honestly.

'Never?' he pressed on.

'Well, I…'

'Alright,' Seisuke accepted, 'but that means we won't see each other anywhere near as often as we do now. Is that still okay with you? Because I know that you will com…'

'I won't complain,' Kaori promised, 'I'm not saying I'll never want to join you guys if you go for a drive somewhere but, I seriously get bored off my mind whenever you're involved in these sort of challenges.'

'Well,' he said, 'at least you're being honest.'

'I'm trying to,' Kaori replied.

'Fine,' Seisuke said, 'we'll just take it one day at a time and see how it goes okay?'

'Sure,' Kaori agreed.

'Kaori,' he said taking her hand in his, 'thanks for being reasonable about this, for a minute there I thought you'd make me choose again between being with you and the Golden Arrows and we both know what would happen if you did that.'

'Yes, we do,' Kaori replied flatly.

'Contrary to what you believe,' he continued, 'it wouldn't be an easy choice for me and…'

Kaori placed a manicured finger on top of his lips to make him stop talking.

'I know,' she said, 'just promise me that whenever we _are_ together you'll do your best to make me happy.'

Seisuke nodded and, taking her face in his hands, he kissed her the way he knew would make her knees go weak. In fact, he soon needed to hug her tight against his body and, for a few moments, he just enjoyed holding her like that. Things would be just perfect, if only she liked racing as much as he did…

An hour later, the future doctor drove his Mazda inside the huge garage at the Takahashi residence, parking it right next to his brother's car. Only then he remembered that there was something he was dying to discuss with him, for this reason he stepped into the house and started looking for his older brother.

He found him in their main living room, talking to their father Ryosuke and their uncle Keisuke about some magazine article they had all read. Seisuke said a quick "hi" to the original set of Takahashi brothers before he glanced at his older sibling and say:

'Do you have a minute now?'

'Sure,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'll be back in a tick,' he said to the two older men.

'Okay,' Keisuke said.

'Is everything alright?' Ryosuke asked giving his two sons the knowing look he was so famous for.

'Yes,' Kyosuke lied.

'Alright,' Ryosuke accepted obviously not buying it, 'we're here in case you need to talk about it.'

'I know,' he said, 'thanks Dad.'

'You're welcome,' the doctor replied.

Both Kyosuke and Seisuke left the living room overhearing their father tell Keisuke that "something was obviously up". That made both brothers smile for, once again, their father showed everyone that he was always one step ahead of most people, excepting, perhaps, a crazy old man called Bunta Fujiwara.

Once they were in the safety of his older brother's room, Seisuke asked:

'Aniki, what happened up there?'

'What do you mean?'

'Let me rephrase that,' Seisuke tried again, 'what happened when you went up the road to find Kizuna and Izawa? Because you came back looking like you'd just seen a ghost or something like that.'

'Seisuke…'

'Please Aniki, I know you don't want us to interfere but, I really got worried…I've never seen you like that.'

'She's not interested in dating anyone,' Kyosuke finally confessed.

'What?' Seisuke said, 'did she tell…'

'She told Izawa,' Kyosuke finished for him, 'I just overheard it.'

'Izawa asked her out?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'I knew it would happen, it just happened a lot sooner than I thought.'

'But Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'if you knew, why didn't you accept his resignation tonight? If you got him out of the picture then…'

'Seisuke,' he interrupted him, 'even if he was out of the picture, nothing would change: Kizuna still would not be interested in dating anyone. In a way, I'm grateful that he was the one who got rejected.'

'What?'

'Think about it Seisuke,' he said, 'if I had managed to talk to Kizuna before he did, I would have been the one getting rejected by her. I know it's pathetic but I'm kind of relieved that she doesn't know how I feel about her, this way it'll be easier to pretend that nothing's changed.'

'But Aniki…'

'It's okay this way,' he insisted, 'at least she's still in the team so it's not like I'm not going to see her again.'

'Yes but…'

'Seisuke,' Kyosuke said, 'it's fine. You know, I think I should do what Kizuna is doing and just focus on my studies and the team. I'm only nineteen, I'll have plenty time to worry about my love life or lack of thereof.'

'Just to be super-clear,' Seisuke said, 'you seriously don't want us to interfere?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied firmly.

'Okay,' Seisuke said, 'I just think that Kizuna's not as immune to you as you seem to think.'

'That's irrelevant,' Kyosuke insisted. He then got up from his chair and, while he walked to the door, he said, 'I think it's time I take Akito back home before his father thinks we've kidnapped him.'

Seisuke smiled at his older brother before the two of them stepped out of the room. Then, Seisuke went to his own while Kyosuke made his way towards the part of the house where Ryoko had hers. He didn't need to knock on the door since it was wide open and Akito and Ryoko were just sitting on the small settee the girl had in her bedroom, apparently just talking.

'Hey,' Kyosuke said, 'you're ready to go home?'

'Yes,' he replied, 'right?' he asked his girlfriend.

'If you must,' Ryoko said pouting a little.

'We'll see each other tomorrow, right?' Akito ventured looking hopeful.

'Of course,' Ryoko replied now smiling, 'I want you here the instant you finish your training.'

'Yes ma'am,' Akito said playfully.

That made Kyosuke roll his eyes and, clearing his throat, he reminded the two lovebirds that unfortunately, he was still there. Akito looked suitably embarrassed while Ryoko just put her tongue out at her cousin. In any case, Akito got up and grabbed the light jacket he had with him and, before Kyosuke could tell him off for taking too long, he was already out of the room.

Shortly after, the two of them climbed into the yellow RZ-1 and a few instants later, they were already on their way from Maebashi to the house the Fujiwara family owned in Shibukawa. It was then when Akito said:

'It's really hard dealing with the team, isn't it?'

'Yes, it sometimes is,' Kyosuke replied honestly.

'For what it's worth,' Akito said, 'I think you're doing a brilliant job. The way you handled everything was so great that I seriously can't wait until I'll be an official member of the team and have you as my leader.'

'It's only two and a half more years,' Kyosuke observed feeling slightly flattered.

'Only?' Akito asked him sounding desperate.

'Come on,' Kyosuke encouraged him, 'it's not such a long time: it'll be over before you know it.'

'Yeah,' Akito snorted, 'you're only saying that because you already have your license. It just sucks so badly when you guys have challenges and I can only watch and, on top of it, having to get a lift home it's just…'

'You'll have your F3 test in what? Two weeks from now?' Kyosuke reminded him.

'Three,' Akito corrected now sounding very serious.

'Are you nervous?' Kyosuke asked as gently as he could.

'A little,' Akito replied then, he decided to be honest, 'a lot.'

'You'll be fine,' Kyosuke reassured him, 'you've been training really hard and your times are amazing.'

'Yeah,' Akito said, 'but there are so many drivers who are better than me. If I mess up during the test…'

'You won't,' Kyosuke insisted, 'seriously Akito, you'll do great and you know it so stop sounding so insecure, it's so not your character, alright?' he saw the younger guy nodding once and then he added, 'besides, if you want, we can organise a race or two at the Centre just for fun, would you like that?'

'Really?' Akito asked nearly jumping onto his seat out of sheer excitement.

'Yes, of course,' Kyosuke said, 'but you need to get your father's permission to race and you need to be careful so that nothing happens to you just before the test, okay?'

'Yes, yes, I'll be super-careful, I promise,' Akito replied.

'You're such a liar,' Kyosuke laughed at him, 'but I'll pretend I believe you.'

By the time the two of them got to Shibukawa, Kyosuke felt quite a bit better about what had happened up in Mt Akagi and he knew that a large part of the merit went to Akito and the fact that the younger guy didn't mention Kizuna once in the entire conversation. That was another thing which he liked about him: if you could trust someone to mind his own business, it was Akito Fujiwara.

The following Monday, Kyosuke woke up feeling slightly less depressed. He was starting to convince himself that all had really turned out the best possible way and, right now, he needed to be as focused on his studies as Kizuna obviously was. With that thought in mind, he joined his family at the breakfast room.

'Good morning,' his mother Akiko said.

'Good morning Mum,' he replied, 'where's Seisuke?' he asked not seeing his brother there.

'He left early,' Akiko informed him, 'said something about some paper he had to hand in first thing.'

'Alright,' he said, he was about to go and pour himself some coffee when Ryoko gave him one of the little cards she'd had printed with her name, email address and phone number, he looked at her and said, 'what's this?'

'Can you give it to Kizuna?' she asked her, 'I forgot to give it to her last night.'

'Ryoko…'

'Hey,' she said, 'just please give it to her. You don't have to do or say anything else, okay?'

'What's wrong?' Akiko asked her son and niece from her seat.

'Nothing,' Kyosuke replied quickly then he took Ryoko's little card and, pocketing it, he said, 'I'll give it to her and tell her to give you a call if she wants to hang out with you, would that get you off my case?'

'Definitely,' Ryoko said with a huge smile.

Shaking his head, he proceeded to get something to eat as quickly as he could and, a few minutes later, he was already on his way to the MIT. There, parking at his usual spot, he decided to get Ryoko's request done as quickly as he could and walked towards the campus while looking out for Kizuna.

He found her sitting by herself on a bench enjoying the first warm rays of late April.

'Good morning,' he said to her flinching inwardly when he saw the panic in her eyes, 'sorry, did I scare you?' he added as lightly as he could manage.

'No,' she quickly replied and for some reason, she started looking around herself.

'Are you okay?' Kyosuke asked her feeling really confused.

'Yeah,' she replied not sounding convincing, 'what can I do for you?' she then asked still speaking too fast.

'Nothing,' a discouraged Kyosuke replied, he then produced his cousin's card and handing it to her, he said, 'Ryoko wanted me to give this to you and to tell you that if you feel like it, you should please give her a call.'

'Ah,' Kizuna said taking the card, 'thanks.'

'No problem,' he replied then, sighing, he added, 'I'll see you around.'

With that, he left her sitting there. Feeling rather depressed once again, he wished he could go anywhere but to his classroom for one of the difficult lectures from his Automotive Engineering course. Yet again, it would keep his mind busy enough so that he would stop thinking of a very attractive half-American girl.

Meanwhile, the object of his thoughts was still recovering from their latest encounter and, unable to sit still for much longer, Kizuna grabbed her backpack and the book she was trying to read so she too could walk to her classroom when, out of the blue, she was faced with two members of the Evil Trio.

'I don't think she took us seriously,' one of them said to the other as if Kizuna wasn't there at all.

'No, she didn't, the other girl agreed.

'Well,' her friend said, this time glaring at Kizuna, 'I think you will soon.'

'What the…'

Kizuna didn't even finish her sentence because, as suddenly as they'd showed up, the two girls started walking away from her and, for the briefest moment, she felt like running after them so that she could beat the crap out of them. Alas, they were in the middle of the campus and she knew that doing something as irrational as that would probably get her sent back to the US before she had the time to complain.

Shaking with fury, she decided that she'd worry about them later for, she feared, her brain would simply collapse if she tried to think of those three little vixens too. Still feeling tired from both the race and last night events, which had made her lose an entire night's sleep, Kizuna finally made it to her classroom.

The poor girl fought to pay attention to what the professor said all the way through the morning until, right before lunchtime, when she had a double free period. Then, she decided to skip lunch and go to the library to get some of the peace and quiet she desperately needed to, hopefully, start sorting out her very confused thoughts.

Locking herself in one of the study rooms, she sat on the comfy chair and, leaning back against it, Kizuna closed her eyes trying to take a few steadying breaths. Then, she let her mind replay the events from the previous night, starting by the moment when, after her second loss in a row, Kizuna saw Izawa arrive looking desperately worried and very eager to talk to her.

She had expected it.

What she had not expected was when Izawa, with trembling voice, had told her that he knew he wasn't Kyosuke but that if she gave him a chance, he would do his very best to make her happy. Kizuna found it shocking that the guy had already caught on her not-so-platonic feelings towards their leader but, in all honesty, she thought she was doing a much better job at hiding them.

'Stupid,' she whispered to herself.

From then on, together with her resolution to focus on her studies and her racing, Kizuna decided that she would need to be a lot more careful. She knew that Kyosuke was nice to her because he was probably nice to everyone, as he'd shown last night when dealing with Izawa's request to quit the team, but she also knew better than to believe that he saw her as something more than a team mate.

Also, there was the problem with the Evil Trio…

A few hours later and with a thumping headache, Kizuna finally made it back to her dorm where, she hoped, she would get the sleep she badly needed. Dragging herself along the corridor, she made it to her room's door and was about to get her key out of her pocket when she saw a little yellow post-it attached just under the lock. Taking it off, she read two words handwritten in it:

"LAST WARNING"

Feeling confused as well as a brand new wave of fury, she went to insert the key into the lock when she found some resistance. Raising her eyebrows in surprise, she bent a bit so that she could take a look at the lock and what she saw there made her swear quite viciously.

Glue.

They had put glue inside the lock, of the sort of instant, super-strong glue which could only come off using a very powerful solvent which, of course, she didn't have with her. Furious, tired and depressed, Kizuna punched the door hard, hurting herself in the process which made her swear again. Then, deciding she needed to get out of there before she burst into tears, Kizuna ran towards her car.

Less than five minutes later, she was already driving aimlessly across Maebashi and, before she knew it, she saw that she was heading towards the Route 62. Knowing that at that time of the evening the pass would probably be deserted, Kizuna made her way there. She noticed that she was crying but, being on her own and inside the safety of her car, she just let herself go, hoping that this way she would feel better.

She didn't.

If anything, she started feeling worse and the sensation didn't improve when she made it all the way up the pass and, parked there at one of the many places from which one could admire the night view, she saw Kyosuke's yellow RZ-1 and its owner sitting on top of the bonnet staring at the void. That made her brake so suddenly that what happened next was inevitable.

She saw Kyosuke looking up at her car and, obviously recognising it, he jumped off and started walking towards her. It took every single bit of her willpower not to start driving away and the only reason why she didn't do it was because she knew it would be an incredibly rude thing to do and Kyosuke didn't deserve that. Instead, she pushed the button to get her window down, hoping that the dark would hide her tears.

'Are you okay?' he asked her crouching next to her car.

Too tired to even pretend, she decided to be honest and, shaking her head, she said:

'No.'

'Do you want to talk about it?' he offered sounding a little hopeful.

Nodding, she said:

'Yes.'

_To be continued…_


	10. Chapter Nine

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Nine_

By the time Kizuna moved her car to park it next to the RZ-1 it seemed to her like all the courage which had brought her to admit to Kyosuke that something was wrong with her had suddenly vanished and, when she climbed out of the 350Z, she was already regretting having agreed to talk to him about it.

'So,' he said the instant she was leaning against the hood of her car. He just stood there, not too far away but not too close either, 'what happened?' he asked with a very gentle tone of voice.

'I don't even know where to start,' she replied and that was true.

'The beginning usually is a good place,' Kyosuke said encouragingly.

'It's just it's so embarrassing,' she said.

'Our moments of weakness all are,' Kyosuke pointed out, 'but that's why one needs friends to confide in so that they can help you overcome those as well as share the burden. Kizuna, I don't know if you see me as such, but I'd like to think we're friends.'

'We are,' Kizuna confirmed.

'I'm very glad to hear that,' Kyosuke said, 'so, why don't you tell me what has made you this upset? Is it because of the race or…did someone from the team say something that…'

'No,' Kizuna interrupted him, 'it's got nothing to do with that.

Kyosuke remained silent, egging her on to continue.

'It's got to do with you,' Kizuna said.

Kyosuke held his breath half in shock, half in expectation. His brain started sending messages which he had trouble understanding and, for an instant, he felt both scared and excited in a really weird way he'd never experienced before. He then swallowed and fighting to keep his cool, he waited to see what she said next.

'You might not know about this,' she continued, 'but there are a few…people, who, let's say are slightly overprotective of you,' understatement of the century, the girl thought before she carried on speaking, 'and these people…'

'Wait a minute,' he said, 'I'm already lost, who are these people? Do I know them?'

'No idea,' she replied honestly, 'but they definitely know you.'

Once again, Kyosuke remained silent.

'And,' she said, 'they were very unhappy with me when they saw me talking to you.'

'What?' he asked in dismay then, widening his eyes in realisation, he added, 'are they the reason why you've been acting all weird whenever we see each other at the MIT?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied sounding very embarrassed about it. She realised now how stupid she'd been not telling him immediately. Even more so when, predictably, he asked her:

'Why didn't you tell me sooner?'

'I don't know,' she replied.

'What are their names?' he asked and now he sounded slightly angry, 'I want to have a word with them.'

'No,' Kizuna hurried to say, 'I don't even know their names but, even if I did, if you went to talk to them it would only make things worse. Those three girls worship you in a fangirl-like kind of way, if you went to them and told them yourself that we're friends, it would make them see me as an even bigger threat.'

'But I have to do something, I mean…'

'No,' she repeated, 'I'll deal with them myself. I don't know how yet but…'

'What happened tonight?' he asked her, 'did they do anything to you?'

Kizuna felt that, for some reason, his voice sounded clipped with anger. She found it oddly self-satisfying to hear him getting so upset over the chance that someone had done something to her but, almost immediately, she shook her head and told herself off silently for being so arrogant.

'Did they?' he insisted.

'Yeah,' Kizuna replied biting her lower lip, then, trying to laugh it off, she said, 'they put glue into the lock of my room at the dorm, can you believe it? It's so childish that…'

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke interrupted her taking one step closer to her, 'you can't stay there.'

'What?' she said.

'You can't stay at the dorm,' Kyosuke repeated, 'we need to find you somewhere else to stay, if you…'

'Kyosuke,' she stopped him getting up, 'don't be ridiculous, where am I supposed to live? I can't afford…'

'We'll find somewhere for you to stay,' Kyosuke insisted, 'if you don't let me deal with them, at least let me get you a place where you'll be safe, I'm sure I can ask my parents to…'

'No way,' Kizuna said raising her tone of voice, 'listen, I appreciate that you're trying to help but, running away it's not going to solve anything. I need to stay right where I am so that they know I'm not afraid of them and as per letting your parents pay for somewhere else to stay, that's definitely out of the question.'

'But Kizuna…'

'Kyosuke, I'm serious,' she said, 'I want to solve this my own way, okay?'

'I want to help,' he insisted, 'I need to help you, Kizuna.'

'Kyosuke…'

'Please,' he said sounding slightly desperate, 'let me do something, anything.'

'Kyosuke…'

'You can't tell me all of this and expect me to just stand by and do nothing,' he pressed on, 'you're in trouble because of me and if you don't let me do something, I'll go nuts, okay? So please let me do something.'

'You just did,' Kizuna said trying to smile.

'What?' Kyosuke asked her looking confused.

'You listened to me,' she said, 'that's more than enough for me.'

'Kizuna…'

'Kyosuke, I'm serious,' she repeated, 'I promise that if things get out of hand, you'll be the first to know.'

'But…'

'Please,' Kizuna insited.

Kyosuke took a deep breath and, turning round giving his back to her, he considered his options for a short while. He knew that right now doing what he really wanted to do would probably be a bad idea not to mention unethical. Considering how she was obviously distressed, he knew that it would be very low of him to take this chance, when her guard was lowered, to tell her about his feelings but he also knew that if he didn't do something about it, he would probably regret it for the rest of his life.

'Kizuna,' he finally said turning back to face her, 'there's something I want to ask you.'

'What is it?' she said.

'You said,' he replied choosing his words carefully, 'that they saw you as a threat, why is that?'

He saw as her eyes widened for a bit then, she trained her exotic features back to an expressionless face.

'They think I might steal you away from them.'

'Oh,' he gasped.

'Stupid, huh?' she tried to laugh it off.

'Is that true?' he ventured.

'What is?' she asked.

'What they said,' Kyosuke said fighting to keep an even tone of voice, 'that you might "steal me" away from them.'

Kizuna didn't reply for the longest time and that made Kyosuke damn himself for being so forward.

'Listen,' she finally said, 'there's one thing you need to understand.'

'Okay,' he managed to say.

'My mother,' she said, 'she used to be a racer too. When she met my father, she was on her way to professionalism and was fiercely set on achieving her dreams only that my father was equally determined to win her over and, in the end, it was my father who won that battle. Before she knew it, my mother found herself married and with pregnant with me and, of course, all her dreams had to be put on indefinite hold while she helped my father achieve his.'

'I see,' Kyosuke said, 'the same thing happened to my own mother.'

'Really?' she asked him.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'she wanted to go to Africa and volunteer her time with a charity organisation but my grandfather didn't let her do that and, instead, he forced her to marry my father.'

'Really?' she repeated sounding even more astonished.

'Yes,' he replied, 'it all turned out for the best and now I can't think of a more balanced couple than that formed by my parents. They've really brought the best out of each other and it's great seeing them work as a team. It's always been a source of inspiration for me and that's what I'd like to have once I get married.'

'I see,' she said.

'So,' he started, 'what you're saying is that you want to focus on your own career and your own dreams.'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied firmly, 'why are you asking?'

Kyosuke considered telling her the truth but, knowing what he'd just learned from her, he knew that now more than ever his chances with her were very grim indeed. For this reason, he forced himself to say:

'No reason, I guess that I'm going to do the same.'

'What do you mean?' she asked him sounding a little confused.

'I too will focus on my studies, after all, like you said, we do have pretty big dreams, right?'

'We do,' she replied quietly.

'But Kizuna,' he said all of a sudden, 'are you sure you don't want me to…'

'No,' she replied, 'I'll be fine. I'll probably try and get the lock replaced later. The only thing is that it's probably a good idea if they don't see us together at school, at least not until I talk to them.'

'What are you going to tell them?' he asked her.

'That they should rest easy because you're as focused on your studies as much as they think you are,' she replied then, before he could say anything to that, she said, 'do you think I'll be able to find a locksmith at this time of the night?'

'Probably,' Kyosuke replied feeling slightly disoriented at the sudden change of topic, 'there are some twenty-four/seven services, I can look it up on the directory, if you want. If you don't mind, I'd like to stay with you until they get it done. I will feel better if I know you're not out on your own.'

'Alright,' she accepted.

Several hours later, a very tired and sleepy Kyosuke drove back to the Takahashi residence after leaving Kizuna safely inside her room. He'd been happy that the locksmith they'd called took a little while to get to the dorm and, because of this, the two of them had spend a while talking to each other, sitting on the steps of the dorm and enjoying the fact that the weather was finally getting warm enough to stay outside.

Kyosuke parked his car next to his younger brother's and, for a few moments, he stayed inside his RZ-1 trying to feel grateful that, at the very least, he could still talk to her the way he did even though he'd been dying to kiss her all night long. Thankfully, his self-control managed to keep things in check so that he would not go and ruin everything. They were friends and that would have to do.

Climbing out of the car, he stepped into the house using the garage's door and, taking his shoes off, he decided to go to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water before he went to bed. On his way there, he saw that it was nearly five o'clock in the morning: he was going to get less than two hours of sleep.

It was that which made him look so tired that even his cousin noticed when he joined her at the breakfast room where she was by herself. He was about to pour himself some coffee when she jumped off her stool and went to stand by his side with the sort of smile that made him want to run away as fast as he could.

'Someone got home _very_ late,' Ryoko commented slyly.

'I did,' Kyosuke admitted.

'And was that because of a certain…'

'She had a problem and I helped her fix it,' he simply said, 'there's nothing more to it.'

'A problem?' Ryoko asked him now looking a little worried.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'she found herself locked out of her room at the dorm.'

'She's staying at the dorm?' Ryoko asked him looking slightly alarmed.

'Yes,' Kyosuke said.

'That's not safe,' she decided.

'I agree,' Kyosuke said before he could stop himself.

'Why is she staying there?' Ryoko asked him.

'I guess because it's the cheapest alternative,' he replied, 'I told her she should get her own place but she said she can't afford to. I even told her that we could help her but she doesn't want our help and I think I can understand that.'

'Well, I can't,' was Ryoko's predictable answer, 'we have to get her out of there, I mean, why did she get locked out in the first place? Doesn't the administrator have spare keys or something like that?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'I guess they do but, that wasn't the problem, it was…'

'What?' Ryoko pressed on.

Kyosuke let out a long sigh and, probably because he was tired and probably because he knew that he really wanted to do something to help Kizuna and he was desperate for ideas, he finally confessed:

'They pulled a prank on her and put glue in the lock.'

'WHAT?' Ryoko exclaimed.

'Shush!' he told her off.

'She can't possibly stay there,' the girl said trying to lower her tone of voice, 'you know that, right?'

'Of course I do,' Kyosuke said, 'but you heard me, she doesn't want our help, she doesn't want _my_ help.'

Ryoko didn't say anything to that, instead, she looked as though as she was concentrating on something and, for some reason, that made Kyosuke feel a little relieved. His baby cousin could be very pushy and sometimes downright persistent but she was also a very resourceful girl with very strong persuasion powers.

'I have an idea,' she finally announced, 'come with me.'

Kyosuke didn't really have an option and, walking after her, he saw that they were going to the studio his parents used to work from home. Knocking on the door, they heard his father's deep voice saying:

'Come in.'

They did and, the instant they were both inside the room, Ryoko said:

'Uncle Ryosuke, I'm sorry to bother you while you're working.'

'It's okay,' he said smiling at his niece, 'what can I do for you?'

'Listen,' she said, 'I remember that not long ago you and Aunt Akiko got some small apartment block so that you could provide with accommodation for the nurses and the interns who work at the hospital, am I right?'

'Yes,' Ryosuke replied, his smile widening a little.

'Are they all occupied at the moment?' Ryoko asked and Kyosuke started understanding what the girl was trying to do. He could only be impressed at the speed her brain worked in this kind of situations. He then waited until his father checked something in his laptop computer and, after a short while, the doctor said:

'There are a couple of them which are free.'

'So,' Ryoko said, 'say we had a friend who is in desperate need for some free accommodation, do you think we could use one of them temporarily, you know, until we come up with a definite solution to the problem.'

Ryosuke thought about it for a moment, he then asked her:

'Is this one of your girlfriends?'

'Yes,' Ryoko only half-lied, 'in reality, she's a kohai of Kyosuke from college, but she's my friend too.'

'I see,' the doctor said.

'Please Uncle Ryosuke,' the girl begged in the way which most people, including the former White Comet of Akagi, could not resist, 'she's in trouble and we must help her. She's half-American and she came all the way from the US by herself. We can't leave her where she is, it's just not right.'

'Where is she now?' Ryosuke asked her out of curiosity.

'She's at the dorm,' she replied sounding scandalised, 'at the dorm! Can you believe that?'

Ryosuke let out a soft chuckle then, sobering up a little, he nodded once and said:

'Alright, I guess it shouldn't be a problem if we let her stay there, mind you the apartments there aren't much bigger than the room she probably has now. Also, they're about twenty minutes walk from the MIT, I don't know if that's going to be…'

'It's perfect,' Ryoko decided, 'she's got a car anyway so she'll be fine.'

'Okay,' Ryosuke said, 'in that case, let me know when she's ready to move in and I'll get you the keys.'

Ryoko smiled so wide that it made Kyosuke smile too. She then walked around her uncle's desk and, planting a kiss onto his cheek, she gave him a quick hug too before she said:

'You're the best uncle in the whole world.'

Kyosuke bit his lip trying not to laugh when seeing his ever-so-stoic father trying hard not to blush. It was probably because he was losing that battle that the doctor told both his son and niece to leave him alone so that he could work in peace. The two of them then made it back to the breakfast room.

'Ryoko,' Kyosuke said while they walked, 'you do realise that convincing Kizuna will be a lot harder than convincing my father, right?'

'Not really,' she replied.

'But…'

'Kyosuke,' she said, 'I only need to talk to her, just make sure she calls me so that we can meet up, okay?'

'Are you sure?' he asked her, 'she's very stubborn, you know?'

'More than Akito?' she clearly challenged him.

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'there aren't many people as stubborn as he is.'

'That's right,' Ryoko said.

'But you have an advantage with Akito that you don't have with Kizuna,' Kyosuke observed.

'No,' Ryoko said, 'if anything, it's Akito who has an advantage that Kizuna-san doesn't have.'

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked her feeling confused.

'I love Akito,' Ryoko said, 'and because of this, if he says no, it's no. If Kizuna-san says no, then I'll just have to try harder.'

With that, she left him standing there and, once again, he thought that his baby cousin was definitely no longer a baby. If anything, she was growing to be a woman as determined and caring as her own mother. Kyosuke thought that Akito was a very lucky guy and that Ryoko was even luckier that her boyfriend never abused the power he obviously had over her.

That same afternoon, Kizuna did something which surprised even herself: she went to look for the Evil Trio.

She found the three girls sitting together at the cafeteria enjoying a late-afternoon snack while they talked about the latest piece of gossip and, seeing her there made them look at her with a nasty smile on their faces. One of them, the one Kizuna had singled out as the "leader", glared at her and said:

'What do you want?'

'Nothing much,' Kizuna replied, 'only to tell you that I got the warning loud and clear and to reassure you that Kyosuke told me himself that he's going to focus on his studies and that you have nothing to fear.'

'You called him with his first name!' the girl cried.

'How dare you!' one of the other two helped.

'I dare,' Kizuna replied calmly, 'because I'm half-American and where I come from, we use our first names.'

'But…'

'Kyosuke,' she repeated enjoying the way they flinched, 'is just a friend, like I've told you before. We will talk as much as we want because we're both studying the same course and, before you think of another silly prank to pull on me, be sure that he'll be the first to know and, unlike this time, I don't think I'll be able to stop him. I'm sure that's something we all want to avoid, am I right?'

'You little…'

'Hey,' Kizuna interrupted her, 'mind your manners or I'll let him know just the kind of vixen you three are.'

With that, she took the old and now useless key she still had with her and, throwing it on the table, she left the three girls looking startled, scandalised and very, very afraid. Kizuna found herself enjoying while seeing those expressions then, surprised at her own evil streak, she shook her head and walked away from them.

She had almost made it to the door when her phone told her she had a text and pulling it out of her pocket, she checked it and saw it was from Kyosuke himself. She pressed the button to read it:

"Please call my cousin, she's been pestering me about wanting to meet up with you all morning!"

Smiling, Kizuna tried to imagine Ryoko chasing Kyosuke around telling him to ask her to send that message and that made her laugh softly. Then, remembering she still had the little card in one of her pockets, she started rummaging through them until she found it. She then looked at it and that made her smile too.

The card was soft pink and it had Ryoko's name and surname spelt in both kanji and western alphabet. It was styled in a way which made it obvious that the cards had been ordered at some expensive stationery shop, not just printed with one of the many machines one found at the stations and convenience stores.

While she dialled the number written on it, she wondered just how much money they had cost.

'Hello?' the younger girl's voice replied.

'Hi,' Kizuna said, 'this is Kizuna Ethridge, your cousin said you wanted me to call you.'

'Yes,' Ryoko replied sounding very happy, 'do you have any free time this afternoon?'

'Well…'

'Please say yes!' Ryoko insisted sounding so cute that it made Kizuna smile.

'Okay,' she said, 'I don't have anymore lectures today, I was going to do some self-study but I guess we could go and have some coffee somewhere, do you have any place in mind?'

'Yes,' Ryoko replied, 'do you know where the Arakawa Hospital is?'

'Er…' she hesitated, 'I guess I can find it if it's on the map.'

'Okay,' Ryoko said, 'then, shall we meet up there at around five?'

Kizuna glanced at her wristwatch, it was nearly four.

'Yes, sure,' she said.

'Cool,' Ryoko said still sounding very happy, 'I can't wait to meet you!'

With that, the younger girl closed the call leaving Kizuna standing there with her phone in her hand. She really didn't know what was with this girl but she had a way of doing things that made one's brain too confounded to think straight. For some reason, Kizuna noticed that she didn't feel scared of Ryoko and she guessed that it was just that which made people lower their guard whenever the girl was around.

At exactly five o'clock, Kizuna drove her car towards the Arakawa Hospital thinking that it would be very difficult to find Ryoko in such a big parking area. To her surprise, the girl was standing just outside the main entrance, looking like she was right at home but she didn't even have the time to start thinking about it that Ryoko was already getting inside the car.

'Oh,' Kizuna gasped, 'are we going somewhere?'

'Yes,' Ryoko replied busying herself with the seatbelt.

'Where?' Kizuna asked her.

'We need to go to this address,' Ryoko said showing her a piece of paper.

Kizuna took the paper and saw that it was a normal, random address without the name of any café or bar or anything, feeling a little confused, she typed the address into the navigation system in her car which told her that the place wasn't far away at all. In fact, they could easily walk there.

'Let's go?' Ryoko asked.

'We could leave the car here,' Kizuna said, 'it's very close and…'

'I'm already strapped in,' Ryoko said pointing at her seatbelt which, indeed, was firmly fastened.

Sighing a little, Kizuna inserted the first gear and then started following the indications from the navigation system. Less than two minutes later, they were parked outside a fairly new apartment block and that made Kizuna's mental alarm go off but before she had the time to protest, Ryoko was already out of the car.

'Come on,' the younger girl said.

'What are we…'

'Please,' Ryoko said, 'it's a surprise.'

'A surprise?' Kizuna asked still refusing to get out of the car.

'Trust me,' Ryoko said, 'you'll be happy you came here.'

Sighing again, this time for a bit longer, Kizuna decided to turn the car's engine off and, undoing the clasp of her four point seatbelt, she went to join Ryoko outside the apartment block. She then pressed the auto-lock button on her car's key and, after making sure the alarm was inserted, she said:

'Alright, where are we going?'

'Up,' Ryoko replied mysteriously.

Given no choice whatsoever, Kizuna followed the girl into the apartment block, finding it odd that the concierge had absolutely no problem letting them get onto one of the two elevators. Kizuna was fairly impressed that the place looked even better inside than it did outside and, soon enough, she realised that the building was a high-standing one of the sort where rents cost an arm and a leg.

'Where are…'

'Almost there,' Ryoko announce and, a few seconds later, they arrived at the fourth floor. She stepped out of the elevator and walked a few steps ahead stopping right in front of a very solid looking door, opening it with a key she had just produced out of her tiny but pretty looking handbag.

Kizuna no longer understanding anything, followed her inside the apartment which turned out to be one of those posh looking studios, with one bedroom, a small but comfortable living room complete with a kitchenette and a full bathroom with a bathtub large enough to accommodate her tall body. The whole place was fully furnished to the point of having a huge TV with a satellite receiver placed under it.

'So,' Ryoko said smiling after having completed the mini-tour, 'what do you think?'

'What do I think of what?' Kizuna asked her.

'This,' Ryoko said indicating the living room where the two girls stood, 'do you like it? I know it's a bit small but…'

'Wait a minute,' Kizuna said finally catching on, 'has Kyosuke…'

'No, no,' Ryoko interrupted her, 'this has nothing to do with my cousin. He just happened to mention that you had problems with your…accommodation, and I knew we had a couple of apartments here which are empty and I think we will all sleep better at night if we know you're here, instead that at the dorm.'

'Ryoko…'

'Like I said,' she interrupted her, 'it's not huge and it's a bit far from the MIT but I think that you'll be much happier here than where you are now and…'

'I can't afford to pay the rent in here,' Kizuna finally said.

'What rent?' Ryoko asked her now sounding confused, as if she didn't understand the meaning of the word.

'Living here will cost a fortune,' Kizuna explained, 'and I can't…'

'Oh,' Ryoko laughed, 'silly me! I forgot to tell you that you won't have to pay for anything. This place belongs to our family, we bought it for the medical staff who works at the Arakawa Hospital but, as you can see, this unit is vacant so I asked my uncle and he said it's cool if you stay here.'

'I can't…'

'Kizuna-san,' Ryoko said now sounding a little sad, 'my cousin was so worried about you, you know?'

'He was?' Kizuna asked.

'Of course,' Ryoko said, 'and I don't blame him, after what happened to you! I simply can't have you there at the mercy of some vandals who think it's fun to put glue inside your lock. No, no, I won't sleep at night if I know you're there.'

'Ryoko-chan, come on, let's not exaggerate,' Kizuna said trying to make the girl reason.

'Please,' she begged, 'do it for me.'

'Ryoko-chan…'

'And for Kyosuke, he won't sleep at night either and then his marks will drop and he won't be able to graduate and then…'

'Alright, alright,' Kizuna said, 'I get it.'

'So,' Ryoko said smiling again, 'when are you moving in?'

'You will not take a no for an answer, will you?'

'Nope,' the girl replied shaking her head.

Kizuna stared at her for the longest time trying, and failing, to come up with a way out of this bizarre situation but, checking the place out, she realised that she had a really good deal in front of her. She really didn't want to leave the room at the dorm because she feared the Evil Trio would see it as her running away but, again, having her own place was something she'd dreamt about for while and, this one was free.

'Kizuna-san?' she heard Ryoko say.

'I can't accept not paying anything for it.' Kizuna said, 'it's just not fair, even the dorm isn't free.'

'That's cool,' Ryoko said, 'because from what I understand, you'll have to pay for the electricity and the gas, I think the water is included in the apartment but, in any case, it won't be free-free, you'll still have to cover your expenses and then there's the food. You'll be okay with that, right?'

'I guess,' Kizuna said running some figures in her head.

'Cool,' Ryoko repeated, 'you're doing me such a big favour by moving in here, you know?'

'Am I?' Kizuna asked sounding surprised, 'I should think it's the other way round.'

'No,' Ryoko insisted, 'because I really want my cousin Kyosuke to be happy and he would not be happy if you had stayed at the dorm,' then, speaking with a studied casual tone, she said, 'he cares about you a lot, you know?'

Kizuna went mute.

'As much as you care about him, am I right?' Ryoko asked cheekily.

Kizuna didn't reply to that either which, to Ryoko, was the best way to get the confirmation she needed. Because of this, her smile widened while she proceeded with the second part of her not-so-secret mission.

'By the way,' she said, 'I know Kyosuke is at the Centre right now and I'm going to need a ride there.'

'Ryoko-chan…'

'Please,' the girl said, 'this way you can tell him yourself about the happy news.'

'You still won't take a no for an answer, will you?'

'Never,' Ryoko said firmly.

Kizuna let out a soft chuckle and surrendering to the inevitable, she nodded and said:

'Alright, let's go the Centre.'

Ryoko smiled like a cat that had just caught a mouse and while she followed Kizuna back to her car, she sent a text to her cousin Seisuke with only two words: "Mission Accomplished."

_To be continued..._


	11. Chapter Ten

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Ten_

The two girls were driving across Maebashi towards the Takahashi Motorsports Centre when Kizuna's phone started ringing. Having forgotten to connect it to the hands-free device, she looked at Ryoko and said:

'Can you please check who is it?'

The younger girl nodded and, taking the phone from the small space in between the seats, she glanced at the display and saw her older cousin's name on it.

'It's Kyosuke,' Ryoko announced, 'you want me to answer?' she then added indicating the reply button.

'Sure, go ahead,' Kizuna said sounding a little nervous.

'Hi Kyosuke,' Ryoko said with a smile, which got wider when her very confused cousin said:

'Ryoko? Er…I thought I was calling Kizuna, I…'

'It's okay,' Ryoko interrupted him, 'you got the right number, I've picked up the phone because Kizuna-san is driving at the moment. By the way, we're going to the Centre now, you're still there, aren't you?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'but why are you…'

'Why did you call?' Ryoko asked him.

'Oh,' Kyosuke said, 'well, I was actually calling Kizuna to tell her that we're holding an emergency meeting.'

'Emergency?' Ryoko asked no longer smiling.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'there's something we need to discuss all six of us together.'

'Okay,' Ryoko said, 'I'll let her know. Kyosuke,' she added before hanging up, 'Akito is still there, right?'

'Of course,' he replied softly.

'Good,' Ryoko said.

With that, she closed the call and delivered the message to the older girl. Ten minutes later, the 350Z entered the huge parking area right in front of the Centre's main building there, Kizuna saw Izawa's dark grey Vera, the guy had just climbed out of it and was now locking the door. She swallowed nervously when he noticed her arrival and feeling grateful Ryoko was there too, Kizuna prepared herself for a very awkward meeting.

'Hi,' Izawa said, 'you're also here.'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied.

'Guys,' Ryoko said, 'you two need to hurry or you'll be late,' she added pointing at the other four cars from the Golden Arrows team which were already there, 'I'll go and watch Akito while he trains.'

'But…'

'Kizuna-san,' Ryoko said, 'you don't need me to give the happy news to Kyosuke, do you?'

'No but…'

'Alright,' Ryoko replied, 'see you soon!'

She was gone before Kizuna found a way to protest yet again, she didn't think Ryoko would actually listen to anything she would say. Shaking her head, Kizuna decided that she had never met anyone who was pushier than Kyosuke's baby cousin and, for future reference, she told herself to never ever let Ryoko speak again: that girl could talk her into give her Z33 up for charity!

'Shall we go?' Izawa asked her.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied.

'Kizuna,' he said while they walked towards the stairs, 'you were serious the other night, right?'

'Of course,' she replied frowning a little.

'Okay,' Izawa said then, he stopped and placed one hand onto her arm, making her stop too, 'I've been doing some thinking, about what you said and about my feelings for you,' he paused to see if she spoke, she didn't so he carried on, 'and, to be very honest with you, I don't want to ruin it for us. I want to be friends.'

'Me too,' Kizuna said seriously.

'Alright,' Izawa said, 'then, as a friend, please forget what I said the other night.'

'Izawa…'

'I knew I never had a chance,' he interrupted her, 'but it still felt good telling you. However, since I think our friendship is worth a lot more than what I might feel for you, I'd like you to forget about it and for us to become good friends, would you like that?'

'I would,' Kizuna replied, 'I'd love to be friends with you.'

'Cool,' Izawa said, he then checked his watch and said, 'oops, let's run.'

With a smile on her lips, Kizuna watched him run up the stairs and, shortly after, she found herself rushing towards the meeting room at the Centre where Kyosuke, Seisuke, Kazuya and Junya were already waiting for them. Kyosuke did a small double-take seeing her arrive with Izawa but quickly enough, he reassumed his usual serious expression.

'Take a seat,' he told them.

They complied and, as soon as they were settled, he looked at Kazuya who placed both hands onto the table and, glancing around the group, he started speaking:

'Okay, Kyosuke has called for this emergency meeting because this morning I got a call from Ikeda Masato asking us if we'd mind welcoming them into our team. Now, since I know the guy, I can vouch for him and say that he and his friends would be a good addition to the Golden Arrows. However, Kyosuke here wants us to cast our votes and let the majority decide.'

'That's right,' Kyosuke continued, 'this is a pretty big thing, we're talking about having four people who are already a team and merge them with us. From what I understand, Ikeda has no problems being under my command but I want to know each and everyone of your opinions before I make a final decision.'

'I'm all for it,' Seisuke said, 'I mean, the more the merrier, right?'

'Is that a yes?' Kyosuke asked his younger brother.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied.

'Kazuya?' Kyosuke asked.

'Like I said,' the guy said, 'I think it's a good idea so, yes.'

'Junya?' Kyosuke prompted.

'I say no,' was his very predictable reply, 'I think it's dangerous if we add too many people to the team. It will also make it more difficult to keep our gatherings a secret and it's been great being able to train without too much public. With ten of us, that will be impossible.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said.

'Plus,' Junya added, 'ten people, as opposed to the four we used to be, means more than double the trouble for you Kyosuke. Are you sure you're up to having ten racers in this team? Can you handle that many?'

Kyosuke refused to grace that question with an answer despite the fact that Junya did have a good point, even more so considering what had just happened the previous weekend. In fact, Kyosuke did have his reserves regarding Ikeda's request and it was because of his own doubts that he'd chosen to ask the opinion of the other members of his team so that he could make his own mind up too.

'What do you think?' he asked looking at Kizuna.

'To be honest,' she said, 'I do get what Junya is saying so, I think that you should be the one deciding whether you feel like taking up such a big responsibility. That said, for what it's worth, I think you do a superb job at being our leader, whether it's four, ten or even twenty different people.'

'Thanks,' Kyosuke said trying not to blush.

'Can I say what I would do if I were you?' Kizuna asked him.

'Please do,' he encouraged her.

'Well,' she said, 'even if Ikeda has asked us to join the team and they're prepared to be under your command, it doesn't mean they can't have second thoughts about it after a while so, instead of committing to each other in the medium to long term, why don't we just join forces for a few months and see how it goes?'

'That's a great idea,' Kazuya said, 'I feel ashamed I didn't think about it myself.'

'Yeah,' Seisuke said, 'what a crappy politician you're going to be.'

'Shut up,' Kazuya complained.

'It is a good idea,' Kyosuke said, 'we could get together and wait until the end of the summer to decide whether we make the merger permanent or not. This way, if Ikeda and his friends change their minds about it, they too will have a way out.'

'I agree,' Izawa said, 'I'm all up for having Masato in the team, he's a really cool guy.'

'With excellent taste in cars, right?' Seisuke teased.

'Naturally,' Izawa replied with a shy smile.

'Junya,' Kyosuke said, 'what do you think? Would this solution be agreeable with you?'

'Whatever,' he replied, 'I'm clearly outnumbered here so my opinion hardly counts.'

'Tough luck,' Kazuya said.

'For the record,' Kyosuke added talking to Junya, 'your opinion will always count. But I can't ignore the other four people in the team and it's clear to me that they're okay with the merger. The only thing I want to be sure of is that I can count on you to help me welcome them into the team.'

'Of course you can,' Junya replied grumpily.

'Good,' Kyosuke said.

Right at that moment, they all saw the door opening to let a slightly short of breath Akito, still clad in his racing suit and with his bangs wet with sweat stuck onto his head in the way they did after he'd been wearing his helmet for a long time.

'What did I miss?' he asked stepping into the room.

'Pretty much everything,' Seisuke replied with a smirk.

'Oh crap,' the young racer said.

'We'll sum it up for you,' Kazuya said, 'do you remember those four guys from last weekend's challenge?'

'Yes,' Akito replied.

'Well, they're going to be joining us,' Seisuke finished.

'Really?' Akito asked glancing at Kyosuke.

'Yes,' the leader confirmed, 'it'll be on a temporary basis but, if things work out, they'll become Golden Arrows too. That's okay with you, right?'

'Of course,' Akito replied, 'it's a good thing having many different people in a team.'

'What do you know about that?' Junya asked him.

'I don't know much about street racing teams,' Akito admitted, 'but I know that it's good seeing different driving styles so one can take the best out of each of them and apply it to one's own driving in order to keep on improving. I'm sure the same principle can also apply to street racing.'

'It can,' Kyosuke confirmed, 'which is the main reason why I founded this team in the first place. Junya, you know that having different racers will help everyone to get better, including yourself. Take that Kitamura guy, didn't you see something you could use during your race?'

Junya didn't reply but, his silence was enough of an answer.

'There you are!' they then heard Ryoko's voice. She quickly stepped into the room looking like she'd been running too, 'Akito, don't run away like that again! Did you think they'd leave without telling you the reason of the meeting first?'

'Er…'

'Anyway,' she continued, 'your father is less than impressed that you left the car just like that. I mean, he's used to it by now but, this time you didn't even bother clipping the steering wheel back on! You better find him and apologise.'

'Oops…'

Everyone laughed seeing Akito's sheepish smile while he scratched the back of his head like he always did whenever he was nervous or he'd messed up then, widening his eyes as if he'd just had a great idea, he looked at Kyosuke and said:

'Hey, since you're all here and I've finished with my training, what do you say if we…'

'Akito,' he said, 'aren't you tired? I mean, how many laps did you do today?'

'Just fifty,' Akito replied, 'and I'm not tired at all.'

'You're sweating like a pig,' Seisuke pointed out.

'Oh,' Akito said, 'that's just because it's getting warm and the fireproof balaclava becomes a mini-sauna. Please, Kyosuke, just a tiny, tiny race. Please?'

Rolling his eyes, the Golden Arrows leader checked his watch, glanced at Akito and then at his team.

'It's getting a bit late so we only have time for one race. Since it's too many of us…'

'Oh, I'm not racing,' Kizuna interrupted him, 'I'd rather watch, this way I can keep Ryoko-chan company, unless she wants to race too.'

'Me?' Ryoko asked pointing at herself, 'no way.'

'Are you sure?' Kyosuke asked Kizuna.

'Positive,' the girl replied.

'Alright,' Kyosuke continued, 'in that case, it's still six of us, we could race with our cars and Akito could borrow one of the Vera…'

'Why don't we race with the karts?' Junya suggested glancing at Akito in a very challenging way.

'Are you nuts?' Kazuya asked his cousin.

'That's right,' Seisuke agreed, 'if we race with karts, unless we give him a handicap, then there's no race.'

'Why?' Junya asked stubbornly.

'Why?' Kazuya repeated sounding surprised, 'because he's the national champion, that's why!'

'So?' Junya asked, still refusing to see the point.

'Alright,' Kyosuke intervened, 'let's do this: we'll decide the starting order with a flying lap. Akito will start at the back and…'

'No,' Junya interrupted him, 'no handicaps for him. I want this to be a regular race.'

'But…'

'Akito,' Kyosuke stopped him, 'it's okay, let's take this to the track. Besides, you still need to ask your father if it's okay for you to race and, while you're at it, apologise for not clipping the steering wheel back on.'

'Fine,' Akito accepted.

With that settled, everyone got up and, while the boys walked ahead of them, the two girls remained at the back. It was then when Ryoko observed Kizuna seeing that the older girl seemed deep in thought. She felt tempted to ask her the many questions she had but, seeing as they would soon be on their own, she decided to wait for a bit.

The group had just stepped outside the main building when they saw Akito's dad walking towards them.

'Akito,' the man said, 'what did I say…'

'I'm very sorry Dad,' the young man hurried to say, 'I'll never leave the car outside the box again, I swear.'

'Yeah, right,' Takumi said, his voice full of disbelief, 'go and get changed we're going home.'

'Dad…'

'What is it?' Takumi asked.

'Er…' Akito hesitated, then he looked at Kyosuke, obviously asking for help.

'Takumi-san,' the Golden Arrows leader said, 'is it alright if we take the karts for a bit? I kind of promised Akito that we'd do a quick race, since we're all here, I thought of doing it now.'

'Aren't you tired?' Takumi asked his son, 'we've increased the training regime and soon you'll have the test.'

'I'm not tired,' Akito assured his father, 'and I'll be very careful, don't worry.'

Takumi remained silent as if he was pondering the whole thing.

'Please Dad,' Akito said, 'how often do I get to race with them? You know that I'll…'

'Alright,' Takumi interrupted his son, 'but don't overdo it, remember what happened the last time you did.'

'I know,' Akito said feeling slightly embarrassed.

'And,' Takumi added, 'you know I'll get mad if you say you're too tired to go to school tomorrow.'

'I know,' Akito repeated, this time sounding a bit annoyed.

'In that case,' his old man said, 'I'll go and finish some paperwork, we'll go home in an hour.'

'Alright,' Akito said smiling happily, 'thanks Dad! You're the best!'

'Shut up,' Takumi said looking flustered. He then walked away from the group while he was visibly shaking his head. Because of that, they all saw clearly what looked to be a tiny but very pleased smile on his face.

Soon after his departure, all six young men busied themselves with the karts they had picked out of the vast selection of them which were kept in the hangar-like building by the Centre's main track. After a few moments preparing them, checking that the tyres were in perfect condition and that the tiny deposits were filled with fuel, they all got onboard so that they could drive them to the go-kart track.

Ryoko and Kizuna watched them from the side of the course while they decided the starting order for the mini-qualifying session they would hold before the actual race which would only cover twenty two laps.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'Akito, you'll go first, set the best time you can and we'll take that as reference.'

'Okay,' he replied trying to ignore the way Junya was looking at him.

Getting back into the kart, Akito made it roll towards the starting line and, at Seisuke's signal, he took off for a first warm up lap. He knew that track by heart: right after the short main straight, there was a tight left-hander followed by an "S" shaped chicane which led to the fastest corner of the course, a right-hand, wide turn which preceded the slowest part of the course with a series of zigzag-like corners which ended in a wide left-hand turn that would take him back to the main straight.

'Now!' Kyosuke said the instant Akito crossed the line and was launched into his first and only flying lap.

Kazuya pressed the start button on his chronometer while Seisuke did the same with his. The two of them observed while Akito covered the circuit at high speed, negotiating each of the turns as if the little kart was on rails. To anyone who watched him drive, it looked like he wasn't even making an effort.

'He's amazing,' Kizuna commented.

'Yes, he is,' Ryoko agreed.

Akito finished the lap, clocking it at what was one of his best times yet and, after checking that both chronometers had clocked the lap at just under one and a half minutes, Kyosuke looked at Junya and said:

'You still want him to race us without any handicaps?'

Junya grunted something incomprehensible.

'What was that?' an amused Kazuya asked his cousin.

'Alright,' Junya said grumpily, 'we'll have him start at the back.'

'Fine by me,' Akito accepted still sitting on his kart with his voice muffled by his helmet.

Fifteen minutes later, the best time after Akito's was Kyosuke's with his one minute and forty two seconds, followed by Junya and Seisuke who were just a couple of seconds apart. After them, there was Kazuya and, closing the grid, they had Izawa who had managed to finish his lap in just under two minutes.

'Not bad,' Akito told him seriously, 'it's the first time you drive a kart, isn't it?'

'Yes,' Izawa confessed looking slightly embarrassed.

'I'm impressed,' Akito said, 'I don't think I was that good when I first drove one of those.'

'Liar,' Seisuke coughed.

'Anyway,' Kyosuke said trying not to laugh, 'let's start: we have less than forty minutes to finish the race.'

It took just under a minute to get all six cars lined up with Kyosuke on the pole position, Junya a little behind at his left side, Seisuke and Kazuya were in the second row and Akito placed his kart just after Izawa's. Once he was ready, Akito raised his hand so that Kizuna could start the countdown.

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

All six karts took off with Kyosuke keeping his position quite firmly. Seisuke managed to overtake Junya just before the first corner which left the older guy at the mercy of his cousin Kazuya who staged his first attack, failing to pass him. Meanwhile Izawa found himself struggling to keep his kart onto a straight line while he saw Akito drive ahead of him with such ease that it made Izawa want to cry.

'Shit,' the Vera driver said watching the younger racer going after Kazuya.

Half a lap later, all six karts were still in the same position they'd achieved after the first corner and while Kyosuke had a bit of a breather with his nearly two second gap with his younger brother, Junya was stubbornly trying to catch up with Seisuke while Kazuya was too busy trying to keep Akito behind him to keep on pursuing his older cousin. Izawa was just happy that he was somehow managing to keep up with them.

This situation didn't last for long and, soon, Akito found a gap while Kazuya entered the chicane at the fourth lap. Pushing his little kart into the narrow space, he overtook the older guy, leaving him behind immediately after that. Kazuya could only smirk watching the kid go after Junya and since he didn't want to miss the moment when Akito would overtake his cousin, he decided to give a bit more gas to his own kart.

A few positions ahead, an entirely unaware Junya tried to get past Seisuke using the zigzag-like corners and the fact that they forced them to decrease their pace. Busy as he was, he failed to notice Akito quickly closing the gap between the two karts and, by the time they cleared that sector of the course, the younger guy was already behind Junya's kart.

'What the…' he said glancing quickly over his shoulder.

Akito didn't waste time and, right at the last corner of the track, the wide left-hander, he proceeded to veer towards the outside, pressing the tiny accelerator pedal while he did that. Needless to say, Junya decided to put up a fight and, with a very aggressive manoeuvre, he closed the gap, forcing Akito to slow down.

The two entered the main straight with Akito literally glued to the rear of Junya's kart which ended up giving him the upper hand as, with the aerodynamic advantage given by the fact that Junya was taking most of the wind resistance with his own vehicle, it was fairly easy for Akito to veer towards the right, level with Junya's kart and, before the older guy could do anything, he was already on his way to the sharp left-hander ahead.

Junya pressed the accelerator trying to prevent Akito from entering the corner before he did. The move forced the younger guy to change his racing line while he adjusted the pressure on both the brake first, then the accelerator which, in turn, it allowed him to not lose speed while still keeping his kart right where he wanted it: right at the corner's ideal entry line.

'Come on!' Ryoko shouted looking very excited while Akito effectively put Junya's kart behind his own.

That made Kizuna laugh softly and, watching the younger girl, she could not help but to say:

'As expected, you're also into racing, aren't you?'

'Me?' Ryoko asked without taking her eyes off her boyfriend's kart, 'no. I'm only into _his_ racing.'

'Ah,' Kizuna gasped, 'I see,' she added then, she asked, 'you two have been together for ages, haven't you?'

'No,' Ryoko replied this time looking at her briefly before returning her attention to the track, 'less than five months and we…well, we kind of took a short break...'

'Oh,' Kizuna said, 'I thought you two had been together for a lot longer than that.'

'We've known each other since we were kids,' Ryoko explained, 'I fell in love with him the first time I saw him and it was the same thing for him. It just took us an awfully long time to be able to express those feelings. Silly, isn't it?'

'No,' Kizuna replied very serious, 'some things need their time.'

'Is that right?' Ryoko said slyly.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied still sounding serious, 'I don't believe in rushing into anything, especially when it comes to relationships. I think it's best to take things slowly so that the relationship has a strong enough base.'

'Is that what you've got in mind?' Ryoko asked her as casually as she could.

'What do you mean?' Kizuna asked her then, after getting a knowing look from the younger girl, she added a very cryptic sounding 'maybe.'

'Fair enough,' a grinning Ryoko said then, she gasped and said, 'oh wow! Seisuke's not going to like that…'

The two girls went back to pay attention at the track where they saw Seisuke closing the gap to Akito after the younger guy had tried to overtake him. Junya meanwhile hadn't given up either but right now he was too busy trying to keep Kazuya behind his kart. Izawa was still surprisingly close to the other five karts but it was Kyosuke who seemed to have the easiest time.

Akito waited till they covered a quarter of the tenth lap before he tried again. He pushed his kart closer to the back of Seisuke and while the two of them entered the wide and fast right hander, Seisuke somehow prevented Akito from levelling with him. The two exited the turn glued to each other and entered the following set of corners moving as if they were a single vehicle.

'Crap,' Seisuke said noticing that his kart was losing a little grip as the race went on.

He knew that unless he managed to increase the gap between him and Akito, the younger guy would end up overtaking him just as he'd done that time, ages ago, when the two of them were little more than toddlers. Remembering the humiliation of having a five year old kid passing him so easily fuelled Seisuke's resolution to do whatever it took to keep Akito behind him until the end of the race.

While Akito and Seisuke continued their dogfight, Kazuya was already knocking on Junya's virtual door as the two of them covered the wide right-hander the two other racers had just left behind. Junya was adamant not to let his younger cousin overtake him while he tried to figure out a way to catch up with Akito.

Kazuya, of course, would have none of that and, while they exited the corner, he tried to get his kart on the inside line, forcing Junya to open up in order to prevent a collision. Junya knew that his cousin was crazy enough to get them both out of the race so, paying attention to his preservation instinct, he veered outwards slightly, hoping he would still have enough power to stay ahead.

Unfortunately for him, Kazuya also had the same thing in mind and, flooring the tiny pedal, the Civic driver levelled then passed Junya's kart. The two of them entered the following set of zigzag-like corners at the same time and then it was Junya's turn to push Kazuya out of the way, nearly sending him against the wall of tyres.

'Fuck!' the younger guy shouted fighting with the steering wheel to keep his kart straight.

His anger increased when the poor Izawa found himself flying towards Kazuya's vehicle and it was only thanks to his reasonably fast reflexes which prevented the crash. Kazuya somehow managed to regain control of his vehicle but by the time he did that, Izawa was ahead of him and in pursue of Junya.

With Kazuya out of the way, Junya took a sideways glance, seeing that Akito's kart was over half a lap ahead of him, they only had ten more laps to go and unless Akito made a mistake or something happened, there would be no way for him to catch up. Junya increased his pace feeling furious at his cousin for having held him up.

Realising that he was running out of time, Akito decided to get serious and forget who Seisuke was to him. For this reason, while the two of them entered the wide left-hander which led to the main straight, Akito, in what was a kamikaze-like but entirely legal manoeuvre, pushed his way into the impossibly narrow gap left by Seisuke and, placing both the left-hand side tyres outside the track, he pressed the accelerator.

Unable to believe what he was seeing, the poor Seisuke was forced to watch while Akito got his kart out of the corner and into the main straight, veering so sharply towards the right that Seisuke had to slam the brake in order to prevent a collision. Swearing, he saw Akito speeding up heading towards his last target:

Kyosuke.

The leader currently had a handful of seconds of advantage. Akito knew that with only nine laps to go, he had to cut one second in each of the following five laps, because of this, he started a series of flying laps which made it possible for him to get right behind Kyosuke's kart with three laps to go.

'I was waiting for you,' Kyosuke said as if he were talking to Akito.

With a smile, the Golden Arrows leader decided to slow down a little, hoping that this would make Akito mad enough to get serious. The tactic didn't fail and, Akito, watching the obvious provocation, let out a soft chuckle. Kyosuke wanted a battle and that's exactly what Akito would give him.

_To be continued…_


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Eleven_

Not wanting to make him wait, Akito attacked Kyosuke as soon as the two of them reached the chicane with such an aggressive and intensive pressing that it made it so difficult for Kyosuke to hold on to his first position while they covered the short straight section of the S shape that he almost wished he hadn't challenged Akito quite so openly.

Yet another attack came right after surprising Kyosuke for he'd been expecting Akito to go towards the more favourable outside part of the track. Instead, Akito insisted on pushing his car through the inside, leaving Kyosuke with no option but to keep as close as possible to the inner side of the course.

Unfortunately, that also made him miss the ideal entry point for the wide right-hander and that allowed for Akito to veer outwards and try and use some of the extra speed he had to overtake him there. Kyosuke, once again, did his best to close the door managing to clear the corner a hair before Akito did.

'Geez, he's persistent,' Kizuna complained frowning while she watched the action.

'You've got no idea,' Ryoko said smiling proudly.

'Hey,' Kizuna said, 'who are you rooting for? That's your cousin there.'

'Yes,' Ryoko replied calmly, 'but Akito is my boyfriend and Kyosuke has enough support from you, hasn't he?'

That muted Kizuna who chose to watch the rest of the race in silence which turned to be a good idea since things got only faster. Adding onto the furious dogfight for the first position, Junya was doing his best to try and overtake Seisuke, unfortunately for him, the younger of the Takahashi brothers was well known for his super-strong blocking skills and the fact that Akito had once again managed to pass him had only made him all the more determined to hold on to his third place.

Kazuya was also attached to Izawa's kart but the Vera driver was putting up a very admirable fight which, on top of the small vibration coming from one of the tyres, the suspension of which had probably been damaged during the little excursion courtesy of Junya, it all made Kazuya settle for the last place swearing that he'd made Junya pay for it during one of the Golden Arrows many training sessions.

Meanwhile this happened, Kyosuke had his hands full trying to cope with Akito's constant pressure and while they covered the zigzag-like sector, he watched while Akito made kept moving his kart from right to left, trying to find a gap while doing his best to confuse Kyosuke. The Golden Arrows leader knew that unless he stopped paying attention to that, he'd grow distracted and then Akito would use that chance to pass him.

While negotiating the last corner before the straight, Kyosuke decided to take a deep breath, in preparation for what was the penultimate lap. He only needed to hold on for two more laps and victory would be his.

Naturally, Akito had other intentions and while they cruised down the straight, he decided to adopt an entirely different strategy and, instead of attacking Kyosuke as the guy probably expected him to do, he decided to remain firmly behind him for at least half a lap, also because he too needed a little breather so that he could rest his tired arms a little.

'What is he doing now?' Kyosuke asked himself seeing that Akito was no longer attacking.

Fighting the urge to look behind him, he thought of increasing his speed a bit but then decided against it for it would make Akito think that he was afraid and, in racing, just like in every sport, it was important to show the opponent a confident and fearless attitude. This was what made Kyosuke be ready for an attack at every one of the spots where Akito had tried to overtake him during the previous lap.

But nothing happened.

Not until the start of the zigzag-like part of the track. There Akito literally glued himself to Kyosuke's kart to the point where the older guy actually felt a little bump coming from behind his kart. That made him think that Akito would now stage his final attack and, in preparation, he braced himself against it.

But nothing happened there either.

The two karts followed each other into the wide left-hander and, there, when Kyosuke was about to turn round to see what Akito was doing, the younger racer pulled the same stunt he'd done with Seisuke only that, this time and seeing how Kyosuke was currently veering out towards the exit of the corner, Akito decided to go to the outside of the track placing both of the right-side tyres out of the tarmac.

There, some of the legendary Fujiwara luck made it possible that the short grass which covered parts of the track was still a little wet from the light rain which had fallen during the morning. That made the kart glide forward much faster than it should have been possible and, in a few moments, Akito was level with Kyosuke.

The two karts then covered the straight side-by-side crossing the starting line together.

With only one lap to go, Kyosuke knew that if Akito passed him now, it would be the end of the race so, knowing fully well that Akito would probably veer inwards to get into the entry of the corner, Kyosuke cut his way, forcing him to keep going outwards. Predictably enough, Kyosuke saw that Akito simply chose a different line to negotiate the corner and, in the end, they exited the corner still pretty much level.

The chicane would be an entirely different business and, Kyosuke knew that there would be no way for the two of them to enter it at the same time, regardless of the racing line they took. For this reason, and seeing how his kart was still a few centimetres ahead, he launched it into the first half of the S hoping that Akito would not want to push him out of the way.

Akito did no such thing and, in what was an oddly conservative move, he limited himself to get back behind Kyosuke's kart so that they could cover the chicane without crashing into each other. Then, at the wide right-hander, Kyosuke saw that Akito went inwards and, once again placing his kart's tyres outside the track, this time it was he who forced Kyosuke to stay out of the way.

That made it possible for Akito to clear the corner just ahead of Kyosuke and that's all he needed to get into the zigzag part of the track before Kyosuke did, giving the older guy with no choice but to watch him get away from him. It was then when Kyosuke noticed that something was weird with Akito's kart which moved a lot more sluggishly than it should have.

The impression only increased when he saw Akito entering the last corner of the race but, not having the time to think about it, Kyosuke decided to copy what Akito had done before and, placing the tyres outside the corner, he felt the kart speeding because of the wet grass and, once he saw his kart level with Akito's, he decided to get back into the tarmac crossing his kart just in front of Akito's, thanking his lucky star that the younger guy was wise enough to slow down, at least temporarily.

Knowing that Akito would not give up until the very end of the race, Kyosuke floored the accelerator making the engine push the little kart all the way to the finish line. Predictably, Akito did the same exact thing levelling his kart with Kyosuke's and for a few long instants, both Kizuna and Ryoko held their breaths waiting for the moment when both karts crossed the finish line practically at the same time.

'Who's won?' Ryoko asked Kizuna almost expecting the older girl to know.

'No idea,' she replied feeling very confused, 'I think it's a…'

She didn't finish the sentence for, right at that moment, Ryoko started running towards Akito's kart which had stopped next to Kyosuke while the two racers waited for Seisuke and Junya to cross the finish line too. To his credit, Junya had never stopped trying to catch up with Seisuke till the very end giving up only when the younger guy crossed the finish line in third place forcing him to settle with the fourth.

'Who's won?' Seisuke asked the instant he parked his kart, removing his helmet while he joined his older brother and his best friend. Junya walked after him with a dark expression on his face.

'I think it was a tie,' Kyosuke informed them then, for some reason, he started walking towards Akito's kart and was about to crouch next to it when Akito hurried to stop him by planting himself in between Kyosuke and his kart, 'Akito,' the Golden Arrows leader said, 'what are you doing?'

'Er…'

'You've done something to your kart,' it wasn't a question.

'Er…I…'

'What have you done?' Junya came asking, using a rather threatening tone of voice.

'I haven't…'

'Move over Akito,' Kyosuke ordered him, speaking with such a serious expression that Akito, very reluctantly, took a couple of steps away from his kart. Kyosuke started inspecting the little vehicle and, after a few instants, just when they were joined by the newly arrived Izawa and Kazuya, he found something taped underneath Akito's seat: three five-kilos disks normally used to weight down the karts for training purposes.

'What is…' Seisuke started.

'Well,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'at least that explains the reason why you couldn't overtake me and the reason why your kart looked sluggish. What I want to know is the reason why you put those things in there.'

'I…'

'You arrogant little…'

'Junya,' a very serious Kazuya said stopping his cousin, 'let him explain himself.'

Kizuna and Ryoko remained quiet while Akito, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there, scratched the back of his head then, glancing at Kyosuke with an almost afraid expression on his young face, he said:

'I…I wasn't sure if Junya-san would agree to giving me a handicap, and…'

'And you decided to put the weights there,' Kyosuke finished the explanation for him.

'Yeah,' Akito said, 'I'm really sorry, I swear, I wasn't trying to look down on you or anything besides, I'm a lot lighter than you guys are so it wasn't very much of a handicap in the first place and…'

'Great,' Seisuke interrupted him but his expression was no longer serious, 'not only you beat the crap out of us in a heavy ass kart but you're also calling us fat.'

'Why don't you punch us too, while you're at it?' Kazuya added with an amused smirk on his face.

'You're not mad?' Akito asked glancing at Kyosuke.

'No,' Kyosuke said, 'if anything…'

'I am!' Junya exclaimed, 'that kid needs someone to teach him a lesson!'

'Junya,' Kyosuke stopped him.

'Leave him alone!' Ryoko intervened, 'why do you always pick on him?' she demanded.

'Because someone has to!' Junya replied, 'the way you all spoil him…'

He never got to finish the sentence for, right at that moment, Takumi came down to the track looking like he'd been waiting for Akito somewhere. His face was definitely not pleased and that made Kyosuke check his watch, they had been there for just over an hour and a quarter.

'Akito,' Takumi said, 'just how long are you going to keep me waiting for you?'

'Sorry Dad,' Akito said, 'I just need to…'

'Go and get changed,' Kyosuke told him, 'we'll put your kart away for you.'

'I'm really sorry,' Akito said, 'I…'

'Akito!' Takumi exclaimed, 'now!'

Looking mortified by the whole thing, he exchanged a quick look with everyone there noticing how Kyosuke had his usual serious expression, Kazuya and Seisuke were just their usual relaxed selves and Izawa was just looking at him in awe. Junya still looking pissed off while Kizuna was looking at him in a sisterly kind of way. Ryoko took his hand and, smiling at him, she said:

'Let's go, I'll stay with your Dad while you get changed.'

'Thanks,' Akito said, he looked at Kyosuke and, looking sorry again, he asked, 'I'll see you soon?'

'Sure,' Kyosuke said then, smiling a little, he said, 'next time we'll race with cars and no handicaps.'

'But I…'

'Don't worry,' he said, 'we're not mad, okay?'

Akito nodded and said:

'So we'll race again, right?'

'Of course we will,' Kyosuke assured him, 'if you get in that F3 team, we'll have a celebration race, okay?'

Smiling and with his face lit up like a Christmas Tree, Akito nodded once then, he started running towards the building where the changing rooms were. Ryoko said a quick 'bye' to everyone before she made her way to where Takumi was, somehow convincing him to walk back to the parking area with her so that they could wait for Akito in the car.

'Junya,' Kyosuke said the instant they were gone, 'you need to ease off on Akito.'

'What…'

'I know you probably have his best interests at heart,' Kyosuke continued, 'but, as you can see, Akito's father is doing an excellent job at keeping Akito's ego in check, so try and be a bit nicer to him, okay?'

'You saw what he did!' Junya exclaimed, 'I hate the way that punk looks down on us.'

'He doesn't do that,' Seisuke defended his best friend, 'he was just trying to be fair.'

'That's right,' Kazuya said, 'unlike some people I know,' he added glaring at his cousin, 'Akito knows what fair play is. After all, who was the genius who suggested a karting race against the freaking national champ?'

Junya refused to answer.

'Besides,' Kyosuke said, 'what you see as us spoiling Akito, we see it as merely trying to make sure he still has some fun in his life.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Junya asked.

'Try and think about it,' Seisuke prompted, 'Akito spends hours every day training by himself; if he's not in the gym doing power training, he's doing laps with his car and he's always on his own. That kid needs a little bit of fun sometimes or he'll snap.'

'What…'

'Junya,' Kazuya interrupted him, 'he might not be your favourite person but we're not asking you to become his best friend, that's what Kyosuke and Seisuke are here for. That said, I'm sure you can bring yourself to be civil with him and not the total ass you are.'

Junya glared at his cousin then, without uttering a single word, he walked back to his kart getting onboard and driving off leaving everyone behind. They knew that he was probably going to go home without saying anything to anyone but, as things were, no one really cared about trying to stop him.

'I've got to go too,' Seisuke said.

'I'll go with you then,' Kazuya added then, glancing at Kyosuke, he said, 'I'll call Ikeda and tell him about our solution, I'll let you know what he says, okay?'

'Alright,' Kyosuke replied.

With half of the Golden Arrows gone, Izawa glanced at Kizuna and, smiling at her, he said:

'Can I walk you to your car?'

'Er…' she hesitated then, shaking her head, she said, 'I need to have a quick word with Kyosuke.'

'Ah,' Izawa gasped looking very disappointed.

'It's about one of the lectures,' Kizuna hurried to say, 'you know that we go to the same college…'

'Yes,' Izawa interrupted her, 'you don't need to explain.'

Kizuna remained silent while Kyosuke gave her a worried look.

'Anyway,' a slightly embarrassed Izawa said, 'I'll better go too, thank you for letting me use the kart.'

'No problem,' Kyosuke replied.

With that, Izawa climbed back into the small vehicle and, driving off, he followed the same path which both Seisuke and Kazuya had covered in order to get their karts back into the deposit where they were kept. Kyosuke watched him leave and, only when he and Kizuna were on their own, he turned to say:

'Why did you lie to him?'

'Er…'

'If you do that,' Kyosuke continued, 'he'll get the wrong idea about us, you know?'

Kizuna stared at him looking slightly shocked and flustered. She started thinking of what Ryoko had told her in the apartment and about the decision she had reached during the race based on what the younger girl had said but right now, seeing Kyosuke's serious expression made her think that maybe Ryoko had got it all wrong.

'Kyosuke…'

'Did you like the apartment?' he asked her instead.

'Yes,' she replied feeling disoriented, 'but I…'

'I'm sorry,' Kyosuke said, 'I tried telling Ryoko not to stress you about it but it's kind of hard to make her change her mind once she's made it up. Just for the record though, I happen to agree with her and…'

'Kyosuke,' she stopped him, 'it's okay, it's a very good deal and I can hardly say no.'

'What are you saying?' Kyosuke asked her.

'This is what I'm saying,' she replied showing him the key to the apartment, 'Ryoko gave it to me and told me to move there as soon as I want. I was thinking of moving some of my stuff from the dorm tonight if that's okay with you.'

'Of course it is,' Kyosuke said, this time his lips curved upward a little.

'Good,' Kizuna said.

The two of them remained quiet again and, this time, Kyosuke had the distinct impression that Kizuna was trying to figure out how to tell him something which, apparently, she found very difficult to say. He waited for a bit, trying not to do anything which would ruin the moment.

'We should put the karts back,' was what she finally said.

'What?' Kyosuke asked her.

'The karts,' she said, 'we need to…'

'Is that what you wanted to tell me?' he asked looking very incredulous.

'Er…'

'Kizuna,' he started.

'No,' she said shaking her head, 'don't say it.'

'Say what?' Kyosuke asked.

Kizuna tried to walk towards Akito's kart when Kyosuke stopped her by grabbing one of her arms effectively turning her around so that she would face him. She was tall enough for him not to tower over her too much but it still was a bit intimidating for Kizuna to have Kyosuke standing so close to her.

'Kizuna,' he said, 'what am I supposed to say?'

'I don't know.'

'I think you do,' he accused her, 'because unless you're blind…'

'No!' she exclaimed, 'I…'

'I like you,' Kyosuke finally said, 'I like you a lot.'

'Kyosuke no…'

'No what?' he asked her harshly.

'I…'

'Listen, I wasn't even going to tell you,' he confessed, 'but I just don't think I can keep this to myself anymore, not when I keep getting the impression that you feel the same way about me.'

'Kyosuke,' she said with a shaky voice.

'Because you do like me, don't you?' Kyosuke pressed on.

'I…'

'Look,' he said forcing himself to calm down a bit, 'I know that you're not interested in dating anyone…'

'Who told you that?' Kizuna asked him, 'did Izawa…'

'No,' Kyosuke interrupted her then, since he was being so honest, he decided to go all the way, 'I overheard you telling him when he asked you out.'

'You did?' Kizuna asked him raising her eyebrows in surprise. He just nodded and seeing that made her ask, 'how much did you hear?'

'Not a lot,' he replied, 'just that you wanted to focus on your studies and that you weren't interested in dating anyone at the moment.'

'Oh,' she gasped.

'You know,' Kyosuke said looking miserable, 'that night, I was actually going to ask you out myself.'

'Kyosuke…'

'It's a good thing I didn't, huh?' he asked with a sad smile on his face.

'Kyosuke…'

'Look,' he said, 'I'm not trying to ruin anything for you, but I really need to know if we…'

'Kyosuke,' she repeated this time raising her voice a little, 'what I told Izawa still stands. I really don't think I can be in a relationship right now. You know that I have to work very hard if I'm to achieve my dream and I can't allow anyone to distract me from it.'

'I wouldn't…'

'You would,' she countered, 'you already do.'

'What?'

'Kyosuke,' she said, 'you're right: I do like you, more than I can bring myself to admit and it's scary how much time I spend thinking about you. I simply can't imagine how it would work out if we started seeing each other, not to mention the fact that I'll go back to the US the minute I graduate.'

Kyosuke stared at her and, for the first time, he realised that she was only there on a temporary basis.

'You understand that, right?' she insisted.

'No,' he said honestly, 'I don't understand why you don't want to allow yourself to be happy.'

'What?'

'Look,' Kyosuke said, 'it's what Seisuke and I were saying about Akito earlier: he too has a huge dream, probably bigger than ours and he's working so hard towards that aim that he hardly has time to be a normal fifteen year old kid. Which is why I think it's so important that he has fun every now and then, if he focuses too much on his dream, he'll miss out the best of life and he won't get those years back.'

'What are you saying?' Kizuna asked.

'I'm saying that if you're all work and no play then you'll lead a pretty miserable existence.'

'That's not…'

'It's true, and you know it,' Kyosuke insisted, 'I think you're just afraid of letting yourself show that sometimes you're not as strong as you want us all to believe and the reason why I think that it's because I feel the same way you do but, unlike you, I acknowledge that there are things I can't do by myself.'

'Kyosuke…'

'I'll give you time if that's what you need,' he said, 'but don't tell me you'll just bury your feelings because I don't think I'll be able to stand it. I care about you too much to see you hurting yourself that way.'

'Kyosuke…'

'Don't worry,' he said, 'up until you make your mind up, we'll be friends. I'm not like Seisuke or Akito, I can easily separate my heart from my head and, right now, if that's what you want, I'll think with my head.'

Kizuna looked at him and, right then, she realised just how lucky she was. Because of this, she said:

'I just need to figure some stuff out.'

'I know you do,' Kyosuke said gently.

'Can I ask you something?' she said.

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied.

'How can you always be so rational?' she asked him.

'I don't know,' he said, 'to be honest, I don't really like that side of my personality, sometimes I wish I could let myself go but I know most people would freak out if I did. Besides, I think there are enough madmen in our team so at least one of us needs to be the voice of reason.'

'That's true,' Kizuna said with a small smile.

'It's hard being me,' Kyosuke added trying to make a joke.

'It is,' she replied looking at him seriously then, sounding equally serious she said, 'thank you.'

'What for?' he asked her.

'For many things,' she replied.

He just shrugged and then, pointing at the two karts which were still there, he said:

'Fancy a little race?'

'Oh no,' she replied, 'I prefer racing with real cars.'

'I have a confession to make,' he said with a small smile, 'so do I.'

Kizuna let out a soft chuckle, then, walking towards Akito's kart, she sat on it and turned the engine on and waited till Kyosuke did the same. She then followed him towards the hangar-like deposit where they left the tiny vehicles, parking them right next to the four used by the rest of the Golden Arrows.

'Thanks for the help,' he said while they closed the heavy metallic gate.

'You're welcome,' Kizuna replied.

'Let's go,' Kyosuke said.

'Go? Where?' a confused Kizuna asked him.

'To your dorm,' he explained, 'don't you want to move to the new apartment today?'

'Yes but…'

'I'd like to give you a hand,' he said.

'You don't need to…'

'Let me rephrase that:' he interrupted her, 'I want to give you a hand.'

'Your cousin isn't the only Takahashi who never takes a "no" as an answer, is she?' she asked him smiling.

Kyosuke didn't reply, instead, he just smiled back at her and, with that he started walking towards the parking area, somehow trusting that Kizuna would follow him. She shook her head and, letting out a long sigh, started walking after the Golden Arrows leader trying not to think of what she was getting herself into.

Right now, she just felt very lucky.

On Friday evening and as they had agreed with Masato's group, the six Golden Arrows plus the other four guys met up at the base of Mt Akagi for their first joint meeting ever. Kyosuke was about to discuss the terms of their merger when, right at that moment, the saw two cars, a white Honda Civic Type R which was a slightly older version of the one driven by Kazuya and a brand new Subaru Impreza GR painted in black.

'Who are they?' Seisuke asked his older brother.

'No idea,' Kyosuke replied.

'We'll soon find out,' Kazuya added.

All ten people there watched while the two cars made their way into the parking area and, stopping nearby, they saw two guys in their early to mid twenties climbing out of the cars and walking towards them looking like they had just found what they were looking for.

'Hello,' said the guy driving the Civic, 'my name is Hirota Yasuo.'

'And I'm Matsushita Jin,' the other guy said, 'we're both from Karuizawa.'

'Hello,' Kyosuke said trying to sound friendly enough.

'We've been looking for you,' Jin said, 'you're the Golden Arrows, aren't you?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied politely.

'Brilliant,' Yasuo said, 'we're from the Nagano Alliance and we'd like to invite you to a gathering in Mt Usui.'

_To be continued…_


	13. Chapter Twelve

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twelve_

After the newcomer's statement, Kyosuke found that most of the Golden Arrows members were staring at him waiting for his reply. Meanwhile he was trying to figure out if the two guys had any hidden agenda but, seeing nothing but a couple of friendly looking faces, he decided that it was safe enough to ask:

'We're still a fairly new team, how did you hear from us?'

'We're friends with the leader of the Myogi Devils,' Yasuo asked, 'he told us about you.'

'I see,' Kyosuke said with a neutral tone of voice, 'will they also be at the gathering?'

'Of course,' Jin replied, 'some of the members of the Nagano Alliance are friends with the Myogi Devils and the two teams often hold meets at both Mt Usui and Mt Myogi. This time, Nakazato asked us if we could get in touch with you guys hoping we could convince you to join us.'

Kyosuke didn't say anything to that.

'So,' Jin continued, 'if you guys are free, the gathering will be on the second Saturday of May, it usually starts at around ten and we will have a couple or so races at around midnight,' he stopped for a bit then, he took a card from the front pocket of his shirt and, giving it to Kyosuke, he said, 'I'm sure you'll need to discuss it with your team so, here's my number, text me whenever you have an answer.'

'Alright,' the Golden Arrows leader said taking the card.

'We'll see you around,' Yasuo said offering Kyosuke a friendly smile before he and Jin walked back to their cars then, as quickly as they had arrived, both of them took off leaving all ten people standing there watching the back of their rides.

'Now,' Masato said all of a sudden, 'this is the reason why I thought it be good joining you guys.'

'Why is that?' a curious Kyosuke asked.

'We're not even official members,' Masato replied, 'and we've already been invited to a gathering.'

'Up to now,' Eiji added with his usual histrionic tone, 'things were pretty lonely for us.'

'Be quiet,' Kei ordered him.

Kyosuke observed the exchange trying not to burst out laughing then, sobering up, he said:

'Alright, since we're all here, there are a few things I want to make sure you all know.'

He stopped talking to see if he had everyone's attention. He did.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'as a team, we have a few simple rules all members need to follow no matter what. First of all, the Golden Arrows _never_ race here in Akagi unless it's during our own private training sessions. Also, for organisation purposes, I'll be the one deciding whether we accept a challenge or not, I don't want anyone taking part in any races that have not been approved by me.'

'Fair enough,' Masato said.

'Needless to say,' Kyosuke continued, 'the use of any sort of violence with other teams or anyone else for that matter is strictly forbidden and will not be tolerated. If any of you starts a fight, you'll be out of the team, I don't care about the reason. And last but not least,' he added glancing at Kei, 'you all need to make sure your cars are in pristine order at all times.'

'I know my car looks bad,' Kei said a little grumpily, 'I'll get the bodywork fixed as soon as I get the money.'

'You shouldn't be short on it,' Kazuya pointed out clearly speaking without thinking first.

'What's that supposed to mean?' Kei asked him sounding rather aggressive.

'Your father is…'

'I have nothing to do with that man anymore,' Kei interrupted him so brusquely that Kazuya remained quiet.

'I didn't mean to offend you,' Kyosuke said looking at Kei, 'if you need time, that's alright with me, the reason why I want all of you to keep the cars in good condition is because I don't think it's safe racing with a machine that's not properly looked after. That said, if any of you need help with that, please let me know.'

'We will,' Masato said eyeing Kei who then nodded.

'Any questions?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yes,' Eiji said raising his hand, 'when will we get our stickers?'

Seisuke raised his eyebrows while Junya simply snorted.

'Eiji,' Masato intervened, 'this arrangement is temporary, we…'

'Ikeda,' Kyosuke interrupted, 'even if the merger is temporary, I'd be happy if you want to use our stickers.'

'Really?' Masato asked him.

'Yes,' Kyosuke confirmed, 'I didn't mention it earlier because I didn't think it wise to impose anything else.'

'Oh,' Masato said, 'we wouldn't see that as in imposition and as per the rules you've just mentioned, I happen to agree with all of them, in fact, they're pretty much the same ones we had when it was just the four of us so it won't be a problem for us to comply with them.'

'That's good to hear,' Kyosuke commented.

'I have a question,' Yuta suddenly said.

'What is it?' Kyosuke asked him.

'How do we call each other?' Yuta asked, 'because us four have known each other for a long time so we're used to call each other with our first names. I noticed that you guys do the same thing but I don't know if…'

'I think it's best if we're as informal as possible about that,' Kyosuke said, 'so using our first names is cool with us too, right guys?'

'Of course,' Kazuya confirmed on behalf of the whole team.

'Even with her?' Kei asked looking at Kizuna.

'Especially with me,' she replied without hesitation, 'where I come from we rarely use our surnames, besides, my own surname is hard to pronounce in Japanese so, Kizuna will probably be easier for everyone.'

'Alright,' Kei said.

'One last thing,' Kyosuke said, 'I founded this team with two targets in mind, one was to gather people who shared my passion for both cars and racing and the other so that we could all help each other to improve our skills. For this reason, we must all be ready to listen to what the other members say and apply it the best way we can. What I want to know is if any of you four will have a problem with that?'

'No,' Masato replied on behalf of his friends, 'that's precisely the reason why I wanted to join forces with you guys in the first place. I think that the ten of us will make a much stronger team together than we would if we stayed separate.'

'I agree,' Kyosuke said.

'Alright,' Junya intervened sounding a tad impatient, 'if we've all finished talking, can we get moving?'

'Sure,' Kyosuke said, he then glanced at Kei and said, 'I think it'll be a good start if you two worked together, what do you think?'

'Fine by me,' Kei said. Junya just nodded looking like he rather liked the idea.

'During our last meeting,' Kyosuke continued, 'I noticed that you two have opposite driving styles, it'd be interesting to see what happens if you trained with each other and tried to copy what the other does.'

'Alright,' Junya said, he then glanced at Kei and asked, 'let's go up first, okay?'

'Sure,' Kei replied.

The two guys started walking towards their cars and watching them taking off, Kyosuke could not help but to think that even if they had entirely different styles, the two racers were very similar in terms of their dry and seemingly uncaring personalities. It was going to be interesting to see how they would interact while they worked together.

'Aniki,' he then heard Seisuke say, 'I would like to train with Eiji.'

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'Eiji?'

'I'll be glad to oblige,' the guy replied with a small reverence directed at Seisuke, 'maybe you can teach me some of those blocking moves you kept pulling off during our race.'

'Sure,' a grinning Seisuke said, 'I too will be happy to…er…oblige?'

Eiji smiled at him and placing his right hand onto his heart, he said:

'Touché.'

They too were gone a few seconds later, leaving six people behind. Then, before Kyosuke could issue anymore instructions, Kizuna walked towards Yuta who looked surprised to see the girl walking towards him.

'Yuta,' she said smiling, 'let's train together.'

'S-sure,' the guy stuttered.

'Is that okay with you Kyosuke?' she asked.

'Of course,' the leader replied with a quick nod.

An awed Yuta climbed into his car while Kizuna did the same and soon Kyosuke watched them leave uphill too. He felt a tad disappointed that the girl had chosen Yuta as her training partner but, again, he knew that it would have been awkward if she had chosen him right in front of the poor Izawa. That reminded Kyosuke of something he wanted to do.

'Izawa,' he said, 'get in the car, there's something I want to discuss with you.'

The guy looked almost as surprised as Yuta had just done but, probably not wanting to argue with his leader, he nodded and made his way as quickly as he could towards the dark grey Vera. That left Kazuya and Masato as the only two drivers left and it was only when Kyosuke and Izawa had left that Masato said:

'Can I ask you something?'

'Sure,' Kazuya replied.

'How much do you know about Kei's family?'

'Well, I know about his father,' Kazuya replied, 'he's a member of the National Parliament, isn't he?'

'Yes,' Masato confirmed then he added, 'as a favour, I'd like to ask you not to mention him in front of Kei again. I can't tell you the reason why mainly because I don't know it myself, I just know that Kei hasn't spoken to his family for over a year and it seems like he doesn't want to hear from them ever again.'

'I see,' Kazuya said, 'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'Me too,' Masato said, 'I've tried to get him to talk to us but he's just…he just won't talk about it.'

'He probably will,' Kazuya observed, 'whenever he's ready.'

'Yeah,' Masato agreed, 'probably.'

'Anyway,' Kazuya said, 'it's just us left, what do we do?'

'Well,' Masato replied, 'the road is pretty busy right now, I'd say we could just stay here and wait for one of the pairs to take a break, in the mean time, why don't you show me what exactly is under that hood?'

'Now,' a smiling Kazuya said, 'that's what I call being direct.'

Masato just laughed at that.

A couple of weeks later, on the day of the gathering of Usui, Kizuna decided to pay a long-due visit to Suzuki-san, stopping on the way to the old man's house at the sweets shop, getting a large box of manju there so that she would not show up empty handed. She parked her car just outside the house and was going to ring the bell when she saw the front door opening.

'Good morning, Suzuki-san,' she said.

'Hi,' the old man replied walking down the stairs, 'I heard that car of yours,' he added answering the question she was about to ask, 'but come in,' he said opening the gate, 'oh!' he then gasped seeing the box she was carrying, 'you spoil me too much!'

'Not really,' she said smiling, 'besides, I'm sure you've already finished the one I got the last time.'

'That Bunta ate most of them,' Suzuki-san complained, 'this time,' he added looking terribly serious, 'I think I'll hide it somewhere. But come in, I'll make us some tea so you can tell me all about those Arrows.'

'What?' Kizuna asked looking surprised.

Suzuki-san just walked back into his house without replying to her question. Yet again, Kizuna guessed that Akito had probably told his grandfather about it and it seemed like Fujiwara-san had already told Suzuki-san, Kizuna thought that if her Nissan travelled at the same speed as gossip she would never lose any race.

While the old man busied himself in his kitchen, Kizuna entertained herself looking at the many old pictures Suzuki-san had hanging from the walls. There was one with around fifteen or so guys, they all looked to be in their early twenties and the picture had clearly been taken sometime in the seventies.

'Those were the Akina Firebolts,' Suzuki-san said stepping into the living room carrying a couple of steaming cups of tea, 'it was my street racing team.'

'I see,' Kizuna commented still looking at the picture, 'Fujiwara-san isn't in the picture, is he?'

'No,' Suzuki-san replied with a smirk, 'that man never wanted to be an official member of the team.'

'Ah,' Kizuna gasped, 'what did you drive?' she asked.

'A Fairlady Z,' he replied, 'do you want to see it?'

'You still have it?' Kizuna asked turning round to look at him to see if the old man was serious.

'Yes,' Suzuki-san said, 'it no longer runs but I can't seem to get rid of it. Even my late wife often complained that it was a waste of space but, that car and I have been through so much that I'd rather die than having it sent to the scrap yard.'

'I can understand that,' Kizuna said.

'Take your cup,' he ordered, 'and I'll show it to you.'

She complied and, a few minutes later, she was standing in front of an extremely old S30. The paint, which had probably been gleaming red when the car was new was now faded and there were a few rusty patches here and there. The glass of the windscreen and windows looked a little dull and even the tyres were flat.

'I know it looks bad,' Suzuki-san said looking at her watching the car with a sorry expression on her face, 'but even if I wanted to, it'd be impossible to repair it since most of the parts I'd need are no longer available so, I prefer to leave it as it is, looking as old as I probably do to your young eyes.'

'You're not that old,' Kizuna tried to reassure him.

'I am,' Suzuki-san said, 'but thanks for the white lie.'

Kizuna smiled sheepishly while she observed the fifty-odd year old car thinking that, compared to it, her Z33 looked brand new. Again, the car she had in front of her was probably like the great-grandmother of hers so, placing her hand gently onto the hood, she spend a few instants paying her respects to what it had probably been a legendary racing car.

'Let's go,' Suzuki-san said covering the car again with an old and dusty sheet, 'or I'll get too sentimental.'

'Of course,' Kizuna replied while giving him a hand. She then followed him out of the garage and as they walked back to the house, she said, 'Suzuki-san, did you ever race in Mt Usui?'

'Sure I did,' the old man replied, 'what, you're going to race in there too?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'we've been invited to a gathering with a couple of other teams.'

'I see,' Suzuki-san said, 'well, I can tell you that it's one heck of a pass. It's nearly impossible to overtake and you should be very careful with the C-121, it's an insanely fast corner and unless you're very careful with the exit, you'll find yourself crashing against either the wall or the guardrail.'

'Oh,' Kizuna gasped, 'thanks for the warning.'

'Don't try drifting there until you've mastered it by grip,' he advised, 'only mad people like Bunta would drift in that corner the first time they drive in there since nailing the exit line is an incredibly hard thing to do.'

'Alright,' Kizuna replied, 'but I don't think I'll race tonight, Kyosuke said he's got other plans.'

'That's good,' Suzuki-san decided, then as an afterthought and while he opened the front door, he said, 'so tell me, how is it being part of that racing team of yours and, what does your mother think of it?'

'Oh,' Kizuna said stepping into the house, 'my mum doesn't know yet. I…'

'Why not?' Suzuki-san asked her.

'I don't think she would approve of it,' Kizuna replied, 'with what happened with my father and all.'

'I see,' Suzuki-san said, 'I think you're underestimating your mother,' he added, 'but it's your call.'

'What do you mean?' she asked him taking a seat on the couch.

'Kiddo,' he said, 'you should give more credit to your mother, she used to be a fine racer back in her days and even if you think she wouldn't approve of it, don't you think for an instant that she doesn't know you'll end up racing the way she and your father did.'

'Probably,' she accepted, then, feeling curious, she asked, 'you knew my parents before they got together, right?'

'I did,' Suzuki-san replied, 'it was funny watching them on those early days.'

'Why is that?' Kizuna asked keenly.

'Oh,' he said, 'your father was clearly smitten with your mother ever since he set eyes on her and, for the longest time, your mother did her best to resist but I knew that she would give in eventually. Your father really did his best to win her over and, just as he did with his racing, he never gave up with her either.'

'I know,' Kizuna said with an affectionate smile, 'my uncle told me about it, he even managed to get her to give up her dream.'

'What are you talking about?' Suzuki-san asked frowning a little.

'She wanted to be a professional racer,' Kizuna said, 'but then my father…'

'Your father never had anything to do with that,' he interrupted her, 'like I said, she was a fine racer but she never had the same level of talent your old man had. That's why Salina decided that she'd do her best to support your father so that he could achieve that dream.'

Kizuna was too awestricken to be able to reply.

'After she married him and she had you,' he continued, 'she was only too happy to move to the US with him, she always said that Japan wasn't the right place for her and she thought she'd be much happier in the US.'

'I never knew that,' she finally said speaking with an odd tone of voice.

'Oh,' he gasped, 'did I say too much?'

'No,' she reassured him, 'I just…for some reason I had the impression that my father had made her give up on her own dreams and that has always made me think I'd never allow anyone to do the same thing to me.'

'Kizuna,' he said saying her name for what had to be the first time, 'your mother told me just before she left that her biggest dream was that you'd become a strong woman capable of making your own decisions. Since you're here, I'd say that she's more than achieved that dream. Besides, if she weren't happy in the US, she wouldn't have remained there all these years after…you know…'

'That's true,' Kizuna admitted, 'I never thought of that.'

By the time she left the old man's house, Kizuna felt even more confused than ever. She had always based her decisions on what she knew about the choices her mother had made when she'd been younger and after learning what Suzuki-san had told her made her want to call her mother to ask for an explanation.

'Don't be silly,' Kizuna admonished herself while she drove back to Maebashi.

If she had to be honest with herself, her mother had nothing to do with her decision to be "just friends" with Kyosuke. In fact, the more she thought about the situation, the less sense it made to keep denying what was evident to everyone: she really cared about Kyosuke but it was that fact which scared her the most.

What if they did get together?

She knew it would be amazing being with someone like Kyosuke, not only because he was the leader of a racing team which had the potential of becoming one of the best teams of the region, but what she liked the most about him was the fact that he was so honest and caring and reliable. She knew that Kyosuke was someone she could always trust no matter what.

They also had so many things in common that it was almost stupid and she knew that the two of them would make up a wonderful team. Kyosuke was, in short, everything she had always looked for in a man. Yet, it was precisely because of that that she felt so afraid. It was just too perfect and then there was the fact that she was going to move back to the US after getting her degree to work for one of the Indy Racing League's teams.

Somehow, she didn't see him moving with her and that would definitely break her heart.

Kizuna was so confused and distracted about it all that, at some point, she realised she was driving back to the MIT instead of her new apartment near the Arakawa Hospital. Shaking her head, she decided to stop thinking about Kyosuke and try and focus on the gathering in Usui because, even if she wasn't going to race that night, she still wanted to check that C-121 out to see what was so scary about it.

Meanwhile, at the Takahashi Motorsports Centre, Seisuke and Kyosuke were trying to kill some time racing each other with two of the Vera from the Centre. The two took it in turns to chase each other and Kyosuke was once again impressed with his little brother's strong defensive skills.

'You've improved again,' he commented while they had a break.

'I know,' Seisuke said with a smirk, 'I'm using some of the pointers Eiji gave me. The guy is pretty impressive if you overlook the fact that he keeps trying to behave like a freaking diva, I know you have plans for tonight's race but, to be honest, if anyone can overtake in Usui, that's Eiji so please consider him for the line up, okay?'

'I will,' he promised, 'regarding this, I'd like to ask you for a favour.'

'A favour?' Seisuke asked raising his eyebrows, 'of course,' he hurried to say, 'what do you want me to do?'

'I've already discussed this with Masato,' Kyosuke said, 'and he agreed to let Izawa be the one doing the downhill race. I'd like you to support me too on this since I know that there will be a few people who might not be quite so enthusiastic about the idea.'

'Junya,' Seisuke said.

'Yes,' Kyosuke confirmed.

'Alright,' Seisuke replied, 'you know you can always count on me but, I need to ask you something.'

'Go ahead,' he invited him.

'Are you sure Izawa can pull it off? I mean, this is the first official gathering the Golden Arrows go to, if we score a loss it will be very bad for our records.'

'We won't,' Kyosuke assured him, 'I haven't told anyone but the reason why I've been so busy lately is because Izawa and I have spent most of this fortnight training together in Usui. He'll be fine if he manages to keep his nerves under control, which is why I need you and Masato to show that you feel confident he can do well.'

'I see,' Seisuke commented, 'like I said, count on me.'

'Thanks,' Kyosuke said. He was going to add something else when they saw the legendary panda coloured 86 driving into the parking area about half an hour before they expected. That made him exchange a worried look with his brother and say, 'they're already here.'

'It's too soon, isn't it?' Seisuke asked him glancing at his watch.

'I think so,' Kyosuke replied, 'in any case, remember our plan.'

Seisuke just nodded and the two siblings started making their way to the AE86 feeling so anxious that they could hardly wait until Takumi, Akito and Ryoko stepped out of the car. Takumi's expression was as unreadable as always, Akito looked slightly pale and as though as he was having trouble believing what had just happened but it was Ryoko's face which made them both let out a sigh of relief.

'He's in, right?' Seisuke asked her smiling too.

'Yes!' the girl exclaimed skipping towards them looking happier than she'd ever done before, 'they're…'

'Ryoko,' Takumi stopped her, 'why don't you let Akito explain it?'

'Eh?' the young racer gasped as if he'd just woken up.

'Takumi-san,' Ryoko said smiling sweetly, 'I don't think your son can say his own name at the moment so, if you don't mind, I'd like to explain to my cousins what happened this morning.'

'Alright,' Takumi replied, 'Akito, I'll go in now to let Keisuke know, okay?'

'Eh?' was all Akito could manage to say.

'Nevermind,' his father said then, all three Takahashi saw as the man made his way towards the main building, shaking his head a couple of times but to those who knew him well, he did look like he was very proud of his son. That thought made both Kyosuke and Seisuke glance back at their best friend who still looked like he was still unable to form any coherent sentences. They then looked at Ryoko who proceeded to explain to them what had happened at the F3 test in Motegi.

'It was great,' she said, 'Akito was the second driver they tested and they were so impressed with him that he didn't even need to complete his laps. They said that they need to get in touch with the Federation to see about Akito's license but, if everything goes well, he'll probably debut in one of the races this summer.'

'Wow,' Seisuke said, 'well done mate.'

'Eh?' Akito gasped again, 'what…'

'Akito,' Kyosuke said placing his hand onto one of his friends shoulders, noticing how he had grown a little taller, 'I knew you'd make it but we're still so proud of you, you deserve it after working so hard for it.'

The younger man just managed a nod.

'Hey,' Seisuke said, 'can you land back on Earth by yourself or should I get Mission Control to direct you?'

Akito finally managed to realise where he was and, opening his eyes wide, he said:

'I'm in, I really am, aren't I?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied with an amused smile, 'you're in, you're a professional racer now.'

'Wow,' Akito gasped and suddenly feeling too weak to stand by himself, he took a couple of steps back and leant onto his father's car, 'my gosh…I…I can't believe it…'

'You better,' an amused Seisuke countered, 'because you'll be even busier from now on.'

'About that,' Kyosuke added, 'what are you going to do with the Karting Championship?'

'He'll still compete,' Ryoko replied, 'Takumi-san said that he can do both, after all, none of the races of both championships coincide. However, that means he'll probably miss a lot of school this year. That's why Takumi-san wants to talk to the school to see if Natsuki-san can do some of Akito's lessons at home.'

'That's sensible,' Kyosuke pointed out.

'You won't see him much either then,' Seisuke teased her.

'I know,' Ryoko said sounding serious, 'but it's okay,' she added glancing at Akito, 'we'll be fine, won't we?'

'Of course,' Akito replied as firmly as he could then, as if he had suddenly remembered something important, he said, 'about that, guys, I don't think I'll be able to go to Usui with you tonight.'

'Why not?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Because my father wants to celebrate the result of the test with the whole family,' he explained.

'And I'll be there too,' Ryoko said with a smug smile, 'so I can't go to the gathering either.'

'It's understandable,' Seisuke observed, for once not teasing his cousin, 'but it's okay, like Aniki promised you, we'll have a proper celebration here at the Centre soon, right Aniki?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke said.

'Won't it be Kizuna-san's birthday soon?' Ryoko asked making everyone wonder how come she'd found out about that, 'in that case, we could prepare some sort of surprise party for her too, what do you guys think?'

'It's a great idea,' Kyosuke agreed, 'you don't mind, do you?' he asked to Akito.

'Of course not,' Akito replied shaking his head.

'Then it's sorted,' Seisuke concluded, 'now I have to figure out how to convince Kaori to come here.'

'I'll take care of that,' Ryoko assured him, 'you guys better concentrate on your gathering tonight.'

'We will,' Kyosuke said.

'After all,' Seisuke added, 'now that this punk here is a pro, we'll need to work harder than ever.'

'Don't call him punk!' Ryoko protested.

'It's okay,' Akito said and by the looks of it, he had finally snapped out of his dazed state, 'I'm so happy today that they can call me whatever they want,' then before Seisuke could use up the invitation, he added, 'guys, I'm really grateful to you all, I seriously would have never made it this far without your support.'

Both Kyosuke and Seisuke exchanged a quick look and, before they could stop themselves, they went to hug their best friend. Ryoko observed the scene with a huge smile on her face while she thought that, once again, she understood the reason why racing was such an important thing for these three guys.

_To be continued…_


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirteen_

A few minutes before half past eight in the evening, Kizuna drove her Nissan into the car park at the bottom of Mt Akagi's pass where she found Izawa's dark grey Vera already parked there with its owner sitting inside the car, listening to what sounded like one of those all-girl idol pop music bands Kizuna knew Japan was quite famous for.

Walking closer to the car, she noticed that Izawa was leaning against the black bucket seat, his eyes closed while he tapped his knee with his right hand, following the music's rhythm. Kizuna smiled seeing that and started considering going back to her car when she saw Izawa opening his eyes. He was so surprised seeing her there that Kizuna saw him fumbling with the sound system's controls to lower the volume of the music while trying to get the window down at the same time.

'Hi,' he finally said after he managed to do both things, 'when did you get here?'

'Just now,' Kizuna replied.

'Ah,' he said opening the door so he could climb out of the car, he then glanced around and, looking back at Kizuna, he asked, 'where's Kyosuke-san?'

'I don't know,' Kizuna replied feeling slightly puzzled, 'on his way here, I guess.'

'That's weird,' Izawa commented, 'I thought you two would get here together.'

'Why would we?' she asked now looking definitely confused.

'Well…I…' he hesitated, 'I just…'

'You just what?' Kizuna asked him as gently as she could.

'I thought you two were together,' he finally replied.

'What?' she nearly gasped, 'why would you think that?' she somehow managed to ask.

'Well…' he hesitated again, 'that day, at the Centre…after the go-kart race…I thought you…'

'No,' she interrupted him, 'I've told you before, haven't? Kyosuke and I are just friends, besides, I need to focus on my studies and…'

'You really think so?' he stopped her.

'What?'

Izawa observed her for a short while, as if he were trying to decide whether he wanted to speak his mind or if he'd be better off staying silent. Letting out a long sigh, he passed his right hand over his face and, leaning against his own car, he crossed his arms and looked at Kizuna with a very serious expression on his usually friendly face, only then, he spoke:

'Kizuna,' he said, 'you and I are friends, right?'

'Of course,' she replied frowning in confusion.

'Then,' he continued, 'you won't get mad if I tell you what I think about this situation, will you?'

'I guess not,' Kizuna replied, sounding very unsure.

'Like I told you at the Centre, I knew I never had a chance with you,' he said, 'and the reason why I was so sure is because from day one, I noticed the way you and Kyosuke-san felt about each other. I knew that it was only a question of time until he would ask you out and I thought that's what he did when you two were left on your own after the go-kart race, after all, that was also the reason why you wanted to speak to him that day, wasn't it?'

Kizuna didn't know what to say.

'Am I wrong?' he asked her and, for some odd reason, he didn't sound angry as she expected him to be. Because of this, she looked at him and closing her eyes for a short instant, she shook her head and said:

'No, you're not wrong.'

'So, he asked you out,' he said, 'you said yes, right?'

'No,' she replied, 'I said no.'

'Why?' he asked her sounding almost frustrated.

'Izawa,' she replied trying to keep her voice as even as possible, 'I didn't think that you, of all people, would be disappointed by my reply, I thought that you…'

'Kizuna,' he interrupted her, 'I gave up on you the day you told me that excuse about having to concentrate on your studies.'

'It wasn't an excuse!' Kizuna exclaimed, 'I…'

'Alright,' Izawa said pushing himself away from his car and taking a step towards her, 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you but I just don't understand why you'd turn down Kyosuke-san when you obviously have feelings for him.'

'Izawa…'

'Because you do,' he said.

'I…'

'Listen,' he interrupted her, 'I know I'm probably the last person who should say this and if I were smarter, I'd probably keep my mouth shut hoping that, one day, you'll see me under a different light but I know that this is even less likely to happen than me and Junya becoming best friends anytime soon; for this reason, I'd like to give you this piece of advice: Kyosuke-san is one of those genuinely good guys and you should really give him a chance.'

Kizuna, once again, remained speechless.

Right at that moment, the two of them heard the characteristic sound of a couple of rotary engines driving up and, a few seconds after that, they saw the two RZ-1s driven by the Takahashi brothers. Kizuna found it almost ironic that Kyosuke would choose that instant to show up. Izawa just smiled at her before he walked away from her to go and greet the two brothers.

'Hello,' Kyosuke said climbing out of his Mazda with the sort of blank expression Kizuna knew he used as a mask to keep his feelings hidden. For an instant, she wondered if he'd felt bothered to find her with Izawa on their own, then she told herself mentally for being so arrogant about it and, forcing herself to smile as naturally as possible, she said:

'Hi.'

'Aniki,' Seisuke said seemingly oblivious to the whole thing, 'it's weird not being the first ones, isn't it?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied still keeping his eyes on Kizuna.

'Next time,' Seisuke continued, 'we'll leave earlier so that we can be here to wait for everybody, okay?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke said.

The arrival of a couple of other cars made him look away from Kizuna and that made her feel a weird pressure on her throat, as if the fact that his eyes were no longer focused on her was enough to make it difficult for her to breathe normally. Biting her lower lip, she fought to regain some composure while she watched Masato and Yuta parking their cars next to the two RZ-1s.

'Hello there,' Masato said climbing out of his red Vera.

'Hi,' Izawa replied.

'What's wrong with you?' Seisuke asked at Yuta who, everyone noticed, looked a little depressed.

'Nothing,' the guy replied obviously lying.

'He's sad,' Masato explained, 'because he's missing out…er…well…another gathering.'

'Another gathering?' Kyosuke asked frowning a little.

'Ah,' Masato gasped, 'it's not another street racing gathering…er…it's…well…'

'It's a UFO watching group,' Yuta replied sounding rather proud.

'A what?' an incredulous Seisuke asked him looking like he couldn't believe what he'd just heard.

'I'm part of a UFO watching group,' Yuta explained as if it was the most normal thing in the world, 'and they're having a gathering tonight by the Akina Lake. I wanted to go but unfortunately it's at the same time as the one we have in Mt Usui.'

'He's not kidding, is he?' Izawa enquired looking at Masato.

'I wish he was,' the guy replied, 'but he's totally serious.'

'Of course I am,' Yuta said sounding a little offended.

'Alright,' Kyosuke accepted, trying not to smile while both Seisuke and Izawa were fighting not to laugh at poor Yuta. Kizuna too had trouble to keep a straight face, even more so when Kyosuke added, 'well, I thank you for choosing to come with us instead that…that…er…'

'UFO watching group,' Yuta supplied.

Kyosuke was saved from having to say anything else when Kei and Eiji drove their cars into the car park followed by Junya and Kazuya. The four cars stopped right next to Kizuna's Nissan and, soon, the ten members of the Golden Arrows were there. Before a very curious Seisuke could ask Yuta anymore questions, Kyosuke said:

'Alright, now we're all here…'

'Where's our resident fanboy?' Junya asked with a sarcastic smile.

'If you're referring to Akito,' Kyosuke replied refusing to take offence, 'he's can't join us tonight.'

'Why is that?' Kazuya asked him before his cousin could.

'He's with his family,' Kyosuke explained then, looking at Junya, he added, 'they're celebrating that he'll probably debut in F3 this summer,' he secretly enjoyed the slightly shocked look which appeared on the older guy's face then, he glanced at everyone else seeing that they were as stunned by the news as they should be.

'Wow,' Masato commented, 'that means he really is going to be a professional, right?'

'Yep,' Seisuke replied proudly.

'I always thought he would become one,' Kazuya said looking impressed.

'But,' Kei added glancing at Kyosuke, 'that means he'll no longer join us, right?'

'What do you mean?' the Golden Arrows leader asked him.

'Well,' Kei replied, 'if he's a pro, he won't want to be part of a street racing team, not even when he'll be old enough to get his driving license, I mean, he could get in trouble with the Federation if they found out, couldn't he?'

'That's true,' Izawa commented.

'No way,' Seisuke said shaking his head, 'he'll race with us, you'll see.'

Kei was about to say something when Kyosuke stopped him and said:

'We should get going or we'll be late.'

Everyone there took it as a direct order from the leader and one by one they started climbing back into their cars so that they could drive towards the border between the Gunma and the Nagano prefectures. With the two Mazda leading the way, the last two people left at the car park were Kazuya and his cousin Junya.

'Kyosuke and Seisuke are just fooling themselves,' the latter said.

'What do you mean?' Kazuya asked him before he got inside his Honda.

'Kei's right,' Junya replied, 'now that that brat is on his way to professionalism, there's no way he'll join us.'

'Junya…'

'Hey,' he stopped his cousin, 'let's be honest here: why would he want to race with us for free when he'll get paid to do it? I'm sure as hell that I wouldn't want to do it.'

Kazuya didn't know what to reply and, for this reason, he decided to get behind the steering wheel of his Type R knowing that what his cousin and said made a lot of sense and it was likely that it would turn out to be the truth, in spite of both Takahashi brother's wishful thinking. At any rate, Kazuya couldn't help but to be impressed with Akito: he was only fifteen and he was already so close to achieving his target of racing in Formula One.

'That kid sure is something,' he said to no one in particular then, as if he'd just had an idea, he pressed the fast-dial button on his mobile phone to call the Golden Arrows leader. Kyosuke answered after only one ring.

'Yes?' he said.

'I know you have your plans for tonight,' Kazuya said, 'but, if at all possible, I want to race.'

'You do?' Kyosuke asked sounding surprised for Kazuya had never asked him to race before.

'Yes,' Kazuya confirmed, 'after what you told us about Akito, I suddenly feel like racing.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'I'll see what I can do.'

'Good,' Kazuya replied and with that, he closed the communication.

Meanwhile, at the Fujiwara residence in Shibukawa, Akito was sitting on the couch with his little sister on one side and his girlfriend Ryoko on the other. Bunta and Takumi were sitting on the two armchairs listening to his grandson while he answered Haruko's many questions while Natsuki was in the kitchen preparing some sushi to celebrate Akito's promotion to F3.

'So,' the little girl said, 'how many of you were there?'

'There were eight other drivers who took the test with me,' Akito replied.

'And which circuit was it again?' Haruko asked.

'Fuji Speedway,' he replied patiently.

'Ah,' the girl said, 'that's the one with the really long straight, isn't it?'

'Yes,' Akito replied, amazed that his eight year old sister knew so much about racing.

'So,' she pressed on, 'what did they make you do? Were you nervous? I want to know everything.'

Akito glanced quickly at his father to see if Takumi wanted to explain but, predictably enough, his old man just raised his eyebrows seeming slightly surprised that his son would even think of asking him to do the talking. Shaking his head a little, Akito looked back at his sister and, taking a deep breath he said:

'I was very, very nervous and there were a lot more people than I thought there would be. Other than the nine drivers, there were a lot of people who came with them, plus the team's technical staff as well as a few observers from the Federation and the circuit's staff. I think that, all in all, there were fifty or sixty people, right Ryoko?'

'More or less,' she confirmed.

'Wow,' Haruko gasped sounding impressed, 'and what happened then?'

'Be patient,' a smirking Bunta said, 'he's getting there.'

'Thanks,' Akito replied exchanging a quick, grateful look with his grandfather, he then added, 'I thought they would make me do laps like I did during the training but it turned out that they had prepared three cars and they divided us in three groups. I was in the first one with another Japanese guy and someone from France, or was it Germany, Dad?'

'No idea,' Takumi replied.

'I think he was German,' Ryoko intervened, 'his surname sounded German anyway.'

'Alright,' Akito said, 'so, what happened was that this German guy was asked to go before anyone else and take a few first laps on his own, then they told me to get in the car and follow him and after a few more laps, the other Japanese guy was asked to do the same. I'm not entirely sure what happened but, after only twenty laps, one of the team's engineers asked all of us to get back in.'

Akito stopped talking shuddering a little while remembering the angst he'd felt right at that moment, then he added:

'At that point, I thought that I had done something wrong and that I had blown it.'

'Instead,' Ryoko said, 'what you did was to beat the current F3 lap record at Fuji.'

'Really?' Haruko asked opening her eyes wide.

'Yeah,' Akito replied, 'I didn't know that until the team's manager told me. I was as surprised as they were!'

'So what's going to happen now?' the eight year old asked him.

'Well,' Takumi said intervening for the first time, 'the team will need to draw up a contract for your brother providing the Federation agrees to issue him with a provisional Grade A license.'

'What's that provisional-what-not thingy?' Haruko asked.

'It means a temporary permit to race,' Akito replied, 'since I'm not sixteen yet, I can't get a full license but if an official F3 team applies for it the Federation might decide to make an exception and give me a one-event license so that I can enter in some of this season's races and gain enough experience to grant me a permanent license.'

'Well,' Ryoko said, 'you're the current karting champion, that should count for something, shouldn't it?'

'Not much, unfortunately,' Akito replied, 'remember that, in theory, I should have gone from karting to FJ1600 or one of the junior formulas like the Toyota one. By moving straight into F3, I'm skipping two steps which is the reason why I needed a team to endorse my application to the Federation.'

'I see,' Ryoko commented and was going to add something else when Natsuki stepped in the room carrying a tray full of sushi and having overheard the conversation, she said:

'I still think you should have gone through the normal process.'

'But Mum,' Akito countered, 'I would have wasted two or three full years if I had gone through FJ1600 or the Formula Toyota besides, you know that the average age at which drivers debut in F1 is getting lower every year. The youngest driver in F1 this year is only nineteen, that's only four years older than I am.'

'I know that,' Natsuki said, 'but I still think it's wrong that the Federation lets underage drivers race. You're still so young and…'

'Mum,' Akito interrupted his mother, 'you'll still see us as babies even when we'll be forty.'

'That's true,' Bunta said, 'I still see your father as nothing more than a brat.'

'Dad!' Takumi protested.

'Anyway,' Haruko said trying to get everyone's attention focused on the topic she considered important, 'when are you going to do your first race? We'll go to watch him race, right Dad?'

'Probably,' Takumi replied still half-glaring at his very amused looking father.

'Like I said,' Akito said, 'it all depends on how fast the team gets the license approved by the Federation. It could be this summer or maybe it'll be for one of the last races of the season. If I'm really unlucky, the Federation might decide that I need to be sixteen and then I'll have to wait till the start of the next season.'

'No way,' Ryoko said, 'I'm sure the Federation will approve the application.'

'But Ryoko…'

'We heard one of the Federation's observers at the grandstand say they would, didn't we Takumi-san?'

'We did,' his father confirmed.

'Really?' Akito asked him sounding surprised, he then frowned and said, 'why didn't you tell me earlier?'

'I forgot,' Takumi replied honestly.

'Dad!' he nearly cried.

This exchange made the three females there laugh at them while Bunta just watched the scene thinking that it truly was remarkable that Akito would continue with the family's racing tradition. Grabbing a couple of pieces of the homemade sushi, the old man hoped that he would live to see the day in which his grandson would make it to his first Formula One race.

Fifty five kilometres east of Shibukawa, the ten members of the Golden Arrows were currently riding up the Route 18 as it went from Takasaki to the city of Karuizawa in the neighbouring prefecture of Nagano with Kyosuke leading the way. He was surprised to see that, despite being a few minutes past ten, there was a lot of people in the galleries, probably trying to get the best possible spots from which to watch the races.

For the second time that evening, his phone started ringing.

'Yes?' he replied speaking into the hands-free mike.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'it's packed.'

'I've noticed,' Kyosuke said, 'don't worry about it.'

'But…'

'Seisuke,' he interrupted him, 'we need to get used to having a lot of public, up until now we've been very lucky that our races have been low-profile affairs but, the more we get involved with other teams, the more people will come to watch the events.'

'I know,' Seisuke said, 'it's just that I'm worried about Izawa.'

'Don't be,' Kyosuke instructed him, 'I'll talk to him before his race.'

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'you've told him he's going to race, right?'

'Not yet,' Kyosuke replied calmly, 'I think that it's better not to give him too much time to think about it.'

'That's probably true,' Seisuke reasoned.

'Anyway,' Kyosuke said, 'we're almost there.'

With that, he closed the communication thinking that they needed to come up with a better system to get in touch with each other while driving the cars. Kyosuke pushed that thought to the back of his mind when, at long last, they got to the bottom of the Mt Usui pass, there, using the big space provided by a very wide right hander, he saw Taro Nakazato standing by his dark blue Mitsubishi X-3.

Chatting with him, Kyosuke saw Yasuo Hirota and Jin Matsushita. The three drivers stopped talking the instant they saw the ten members of the Golden Arrows arrive there. Following Yasuo's instructions, Kyosuke drove his RZ-1 all the way into the bay, seeing several other cars from both Myogi Devils and the Nagano Alliance parked there with their drivers talking to each other in a remarkably friendly way.

'Hello,' Yasuo said the instant Kyosuke was out of his car, 'I'm glad you guys could make it.'

'Yes,' Kyosuke said, 'we're also very happy to be here.'

'Long time no see,' Taro said with a smile, Kyosuke noticed the guy was talking to Seisuke, 'if it weren't because we've already decided that I'm not going to race, I'd ask you for a rematch right here and now.'

'You're not going to race?' Seisuke asked him.

'No,' Taro replied then, glancing at Kyosuke, he added, 'we've decided that the team leaders will stand back and let the others race, will that be okay with you too?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied.

Right then, Kizuna got out of her car and, while she walked towards the group, Taro noticed her. Obviously recognising her, he went to meet her half-way through.

'You were in Mt Myogi a few weeks ago,' he said.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied.

'You know each other?' Kyosuke asked.

'A bit,' Taro replied.

'He nearly ran over me with his car,' Kizuna explained then, noticing Kyosuke's alarmed expression, she quickly added, 'I was carelessly standing at the car park and I was lucky he's got very good reflexes.'

'I'll take that as a compliment,' Taro said smiling at her.

'So,' Kyosuke intervened speaking a little louder than usually, 'how are we going to organise the races?'

'Alright,' Taro said removing his attention from Kizuna and looking back at Kyosuke, 'Mt Usui's main attraction is the downhill,' he explained, 'so we've decided to have two downhill races and one uphill. Since it's three teams this time and you guys are the guests of honour, we've decided to let you have the first downhill race against the hosts, which are the Nagano Alliance.'

'That's right,' Jin Matsushita said, 'whoever you choose, will race against me.'

'Okay,' Kyosuke said trying hard to ignore Junya's intent stare, 'you'll be racing against our Izawa.'

'What?' Izawa asked voicing the very question Junya was about to ask.

'You'll race,' Kyosuke ordered.

'But…' Junya tried to protest.

'I think it's an excellent idea,' Masato said, 'he's been training quite hard lately, hasn't he?'

'Yes,' Seisuke confirmed.

'Kyosuke-san…'

'Izawa,' Kizuna intervened, 'you'll do great, I'm sure you will.'

'Alright,' Taro said probably deciding that the matter was settled, he looked at Kyosuke and said, 'the following race will see my team facing off yours, we'll go uphill then, we'll have another downhill race with the Nagano Alliance.'

'This way,' Yasuo added, 'we'll have two races each.'

'And since it's a friendly gathering,' Jin explained, 'it doesn't really matter who wins or who loses.'

That's what he said but everyone there noticed how the level of tension went up a notch. Kyosuke thought that Seisuke was right: there was no way they could afford to lose the two races they would take part in, not if they wanted to start building the sort of strong reputation he wanted for his team.

For this reason and while everyone started making their way to their rides, Kyosuke indicated for Izawa to walk with him towards his Mazda. He noticed how Masato, Junya and Kazuya followed them while Kizuna and Seisuke decided to remain right where they were. The instant they were out of their opponent's hearing range, Junya said:

'Why does he have to race?'

'Junya,' Kyosuke said, 'Izawa and I have been training here for the past two weeks and I think he's ready.'

'But…'

'I've also been helping him with his car,' Kyosuke continued, 'and I really think he can win.'

'Kyosuke-san…'

'Izawa,' he said, 'I'm sure you will win.'

'I think so too, mate,' Masato said offering him an encouraging smile, 'plus, the Vera has more manoeuvrability than that Subaru which is very important in a pass as narrow as this one. Just remember to relax and you'll do fine.'

'Alright,' Junya intervened, 'but if he doesn't win…'

'Junya, stop it, you'll race the next time, right Kyosuke?' Kazuya asked.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied looking at his downhill specialist very seriously, 'you've got my word.'

'Fine,' Junya finally said before walking away to join the rest of the members of the Arrows.

A very relieved Kyosuke looked at Kazuya for one brief moment then, glancing at Masato, he said:

'I wonder if you could do me a favour.'

'Sure,' Masato said.

'I want Kazuya to do the uphill race, do you think Kei or Eiji will take offence?'

'No,' Masato replied, 'I'll talk to them myself. Besides, I really want to see what this guy can do.'

'Thanks, I think,' Kazuya replied even though he looked very pleased that Kyosuke was letting him race.

'I'm serious,' Masato said.

'Alright,' Kazuya replied, 'I'll do my best not to disappoint you.'

'That's a promise?' Kyosuke challenged his former classmate in the way he knew would fire up Kazuya.

'Oh yes,' the guy replied with a smug smirk.

'I'll do my best too,' Izawa said speaking with a very serious tone of voice and a very determined expression on his face, 'it's the very least I can do to repay you for all the hours you've spent training with me.'

'That's what I want to hear,' Kyosuke said patting him on his shoulder.

A little under two hours after that, half of the Golden Arrows were uphill, while the rest were waiting downhill for the end of the first race. Kizuna was among those who had decided to stay at the summit so that she could give Izawa some of the support the guy needed. Masato was also uphill but Kyosuke had decided to stay downhill with Kazuya, Junya, Eiji and Yuta who was currently locked inside his car trying to connect to the webcam of his UFO watching group via his mobile phone.

'Say Eiji,' Kazuya started, 'do you also believe in UFOs?'

'Me?' he replied with his usual histrionic ways, 'no way, I only believe in things I can see _and_ touch.'

'Right,' Kazuya said.

'But Yuta seriously does,' Eiji added, 'he claims he's seen a few UFOs already.'

'Really?' Junya asked sounding highly sceptical.

'Yes,' Eiji replied, 'but don't ever get him started on the subject unless you have a couple of aspirins nearby.'

'Alright,' Junya said.

'Thanks for the advice,' Kazuya added with a grin.

'You're more than welcome,' Eiji said he was going to add something else when Kyosuke signalled that Seisuke, who together with Kei had been appointed by him as the mid-point officials, had just called to say that they were ready to start the race. That made the three guys get their mobile phone's out so that they could listen to the minute-by-minute race report. The only one who didn't pay any attention to the race was Yuta but Kyosuke was too concentrated on Izawa to notice or care.

A few kilometres uphill, right before the barrier which closed the pass during the heavy winter snowfalls, Izawa had his car lined up ahead of Jin Matsushita's Impreza GR. Being the local racer, Jin had decided that it was only fair that he'd give Izawa a little advantage and Izawa was too nervous to worry about his pride.

'Izawa,' he heard Kizuna say noticing that she was crouching just outside his dark grey Vera, 'look at me.'

He complied.

'Remember all the work you've put into this race,' she said, 'and remember how determined you are.'

Izawa nodded.

'The course is long,' she continued, 'so pace yourself and remember to save your tyres for you'll need them at the end. Also, Suzuki-san, a friend of mine, has warned me against trying to drift on the C-121, I'm sure you and Kyosuke have driven through it numerous times but, I think it's best if you clear it by grip.'

'I will,' Izawa said, his voice sounding a lot firmer than he thought it would.

'Also,' Kizuna added with a smile, 'this is your third race.'

'And?' Izawa asked obviously failing to see the point.

'Third time lucky, remember?' Kizuna said.

'Ah,' he gasped, 'I see,' he added with a smile, 'I didn't think about that at all.'

Kizuna just returned the smile then, getting up, she quickly kissed him on the cheek.

'For extra luck,' she said, 'not that you need it.'

With that and before Izawa could say anything at all, she went to join Masato behind the guardrail. It was only when he saw her walking away that he realised what had just happened and, placing his hand onto the cheek Kizuna had just kissed, he raised his eyebrows and, speaking to himself, he said:

'There's no way I'm going to lose.'

_To be continued…_


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fourteen_

Since the configuration of the summit at Mt Usui's pass didn't allow for both cars to start the race side-by-side, Izawa's dark grey Toyota Vera was placed just ahead of Matsushita's black Subaru Impreza GR and, according to the rules established by the Nagano Alliance, Izawa would win the race if he managed to keep Matsushita behind him all the way down to the base.

'Alright,' Izawa said talking to his car, 'we can do this!'

He tried very hard not to think of the tingly sensation he still had on the cheek Kizuna had kissed, feeling grateful when he saw a member of the Myogi Devils jumping over the guardrail to go and stand by the side of the road, right in front of the Vera. That got him to focus on the race and, tightening his grip on both the shifter and the steering wheel, Izawa waited for the guy to shout the countdown.

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

Kizuna and Masato observed while Izawa drove away from them holding onto his position as firmly as he could in preparation for the first corner of the course, the point where everyone knew the race proper started. The two Golden Arrows members noticed how Matsushita seemed to be keeping his distances from Izawa in an all too conservative manner, almost as if the guy didn't trust Izawa's driving abilities.

'That's not good,' Kizuna heard Masato say.

'I know,' she agreed.

The two then noticed the relaxed expressions on several Nagano Alliance racers and even on some of the Myogi Devils. That made Kizuna tighten her fists in anger while hoped that Izawa would keep his cool no matter what Matsushita did during the race. She'd never raced in Mt Usui but, having driven up the twisted and narrow road, she knew that if Matsushita overtook Izawa, it would mean the end of the race.

A few corners down the pass, Izawa didn't know what to think.

Not only Matsushita hadn't even tried to overtake him at the beginning, even though Izawa couldn't help but to think that the guy could do it whenever he wanted but, what was even more frustrating, it seemed like the Subaru driver was just having fun observing him, almost as if he were underestimating him. Taking a deep, calming breath, Izawa remembered one of the many pieces of advice Kyosuke had given him during their two weeks training in this pass:

'Don't look back,' he muttered to himself.

Focusing on the road ahead of him, Izawa limited himself to do his own race. He knew his times in Mt Usui were good enough to make him feel fairly confident and thanks to the many hours of work he and Kyosuke had invested in the car, the Vera had never felt better: the engine's roar was smoother than when the car had been brand new, the grip was perfect and the whole vehicle was so well balanced that Izawa could not believe it was the same Vera he'd been driving for the past year and a half.

He was also grateful that the quick succession of corners and the high speed were keeping him too busy to pay too much attention to the solid looking wall which covered the entire left hand side of the course. Izawa also found it easy to ignore the all too close and far too fragile looking guardrail which was supposed to protect him from the very steep cliff down below. The pass was simply too narrow and there was absolutely no room for mistakes.

'Don't think about that,' he ordered himself.

While he covered the following corners, Izawa allowed himself the luxury of enjoying the smoothness with which the car went around the many corners and how the four tyres gripped to the road, allowing him to further increase the pressure on the throttle, feeling the exhilarating sensation he got every time he drove this fast. He smiled a little and, for the umpteenth time, he felt immensely grateful to Kyosuke for helping him with the car and for not having allowed him to quit the Golden Arrows. Akito was right: being in this team was a privilege and he was prepared to do anything to prove he deserved his stickers.

A few minutes later, the two cars made it to the mid-point of the course where Seisuke and Kei were. The two men saw that while Izawa was still ahead of Matsushita, the distance between the two cars was too steady to be entirely coincidental, as if the Subaru driver was willing himself to be right where he was. What was worse, Seisuke noted, Matsushita didn't even seem to be pushing it in the slightest.

'Things are going to get complicated,' Seisuke heard Kei saying.

The future doctor just nodded. He then pulled his phone out so that he could report to his older brother.

'Aniki,' he said, 'things are going as we thought they would.'

'It'll be fine,' Kyosuke replied.

'Yes but…'

'It'll be fine,' Kyosuke repeated then, he closed the communication leaving Seisuke staring at his own phone unsure as to what to think of the fact that, for some strange reason, his older brother seemed to have an unreasonable amount of confidence in Izawa. Seisuke just hoped that this trust had a sound base, or else…

He hadn't even completed this thought when, as per Kei's prediction, things started getting _very _complicated for Izawa when, right after the mid-point of the race, Matsushita unexpectedly decided to increase the pace. Within just a couple of corners, the reasonably wide distance which separated both cars got reduced to nothing and Izawa felt, all of a sudden, an immense amount of pressure coming from his opponent.

Izawa fought the urge to look at the rear view mirror all the way to one of the very few and short straights of the course, then, hearing the Subaru's engine sounding impossibly close to his Vera made him glance up at the rear view mirror of his Vera. He felt his eyes widening when he failed to see the GR's headlights as he had expected to, that made him turn his head towards his right and, there, he saw the Subaru's nose as it got closer to the Toyota.

Without having the time to think about how that had happened, the two cars entered the following corner, a wide right-hander where Izawa was forced to watch as Matsushita first levelled his GR with him then, as they cleared the turn, the Nagano Alliance racer effortlessly placed his car in front of Izawa's, forcing him to slam the brakes of his Vera to the point where he actually stopped the car right before the corner's exit.

'Shit,' the Toyota driver cried.

Feeling a panicky sensation mounting at an alarmingly fast rate, Izawa fought with himself to calm down by taking a few horribly shaky breaths in before he even tried to reassume his march downhill. He knew that at best he'd lost several seconds to Matsushita who now had an open road ahead of him to do whatever he wanted. Izawa knew very well that unless he started driving at a suicidal speed, there would be no way for him to catch up with the Subaru, even less now that it seemed like his opponent was at long last driving seriously.

He was going to lose. Again.

Izawa felt a couple of hot tears rolling down his cheeks and with a trembling hand he angrily wiped them off before deciding that, with nothing left to lose, he could only focus his energy on his driving so that he could at the very least say that he'd put up a good fight. Pressing the accelerator while he made the speedometer's needle go beyond the point where he felt reasonably safe, he remembered something else Kyosuke had told him during their training sessions.

He had to be positive. Kyosuke was right when he said that in order to win a race, one had to believe that he could beat his opponent, no matter how tough things became. He also knew that Matsushita's car could not fly so it was only a matter of driving faster than he did and then he would have a chance to pass him. After all, as Matsushita had just proven to him, overtaking in Mt Usui wasn't impossible.

'Victory comes to those who dare, right Kyosuke-san?'

Smiling at himself, Izawa covered the few corners which preceded the infamous C-121, finding that Matsushita hadn't got as far away as he feared. By the time the two cars reached the super wide hairpin-like left hander, he already had the front bumper of his Vera nearly stuck to the GR's one. Knowing that Matsushita was probably surprised to see him so close, Izawa knew he only had this one chance to overtake.

It was now or never: he veered abruptly towards the left and, forcing his car to level with the already drifting Subaru, Izawa too sent his Toyota into a drift, keeping his car insanely close to Matsushita's all the way around the corner. He then waited until they approached the exit of the turn to fractionally increase the pressure on the accelerator trying to use the extra speed to overtake the Subaru.

Unfortunately for Izawa, the Subaru driver had probably known all along what was going to happen and, right then, pulling some extra speed from goodness knew where, Izawa saw as the GR darted passed him, exiting the corner just ahead of his Toyota. Izawa was about to shout in despair when, for some weird reason, he saw Matsushita going too wide outwards leaving a huge gap in between his Subaru and the wall.

'Yes!' Izawa shouted.

He floored the throttle and before Matsushita had the time to regain control of his vehicle, Izawa finally overtook the black GR, getting to the following corner, a stupidly narrow right-hander ahead of the local racer all the while finding himself unable to believe how lucky he'd been. Not that Izawa had the time to think about it because the instant he recovered from his mistake, Matsushita started pressing him.

Izawa knew very well that at this point of the race, unless he messed things up, there would be no way for the Subaru to overtake him, alas, he also knew well that the insane pressure Matsushita was putting on him intended to distract him to the point where he would miss a braking point or would chose the wrong entry line. Despite this and for several corners, Izawa managed to keep his cool reasonably well.

That made him notice how the people in the galleries kept increasing as they approached the end of the course and, just then, Izawa started allowing himself to seriously believe that he was going to win this race and was already trying to imagine Junya's expression when he saw him crossing the finish line ahead when his distraction cost him dearly: with only two corners to go, Matsushita staged his last attack.

Entering the last right hander, in what was a carbon-copy of the manoeuvre he'd used to overtake him for the first time, Izawa saw the Subaru levelling with him, then, right as it happened the previous time, Matsushita got his GR ahead of the Vera. With his brain feeling numb due to the shock, Izawa could not explain what happened next because he did everything out of sheer instinct:

The people at the galleries watched as the Toyota crossed right behind the Subaru and, without pausing to break, the dark grey Vera brushed the guardrail while pushing its way between it and the GR forcing Matsushita to drive closer to the wall. Then, must as they'd entered the corner, both cars exited it keeping level with each other with only one more corner left.

With that thought firing Izawa up, he felt his foot pressing down the accelerator, once again entering the corner without slowing down, noticing how the Subaru did exactly the same thing entering the turn just a millisecond after Izawa did. Knowing that Matsushita's car still had plenty of speed in it, Izawa pressed his way into the inside the corner, hoping that in spite of the high level of stress he'd just put himself though, his memory would still serve him right.

It did.

Right after clearing the corner, keeping himself stubbornly glued to the wall, Izawa saw that the finish line was just a few metres ahead of them and, just as he remembered, it was positioned at the entry of a left-hand turn, meaning that whoever had the inside line would cross the finish line first. Not wanting to leave anything to fate, Izawa floored the throttle's pedal and, in the end, he managed to cross the finish line with nearly half a car of advantage over Matsushita.

'YES! YES! YES!' he shouted, his voice shaking due to the overexcitement.

Izawa was so happy that he could have skipped on his bucket seat while he waited for Kyosuke, Eiji, Yuta and Kazuya to join him. The only thing which kept him from doing that was that, somehow, he thought he needed to be a bit more dignified in what was his first win as a member of the Golden Arrows.

'Well done!' Kyosuke told him through the window.

He looked up and saw that his leader was smiling at him in a way which made Izawa feel, if that was possible, even happier that he'd won the race. Then, knowing that he had to get out of the car, he tried to see if his shaky legs would support his weight, feeling relieved when he saw that they did. He the climbed out of the car and let Eiji, Yuta and Kazuya celebrate with him.

'That was superb,' Eiji said, 'truly inspiring.'

'Thanks,' Izawa replied grinning happily.

'Congrats man,' a grinning Kazuya said.

'Yep,' Yuta added, 'that was a very cool move.'

Only then Izawa noticed that there was a member who wasn't there and, looking around himself, he saw Junya leaning against his light blue S18. Half expecting a scowl, Izawa was surprised when, instead, the guy nodded and, for a fleeting moment, Junya even smiled at him. It was a true smile, not one of the smirks he'd seen on him every so often. Izawa felt it was safe to nod and, in what was a true daring moment, he smiled back.

'That was a good race,' he then heard Matsushita say offering him his hand.

'Thank you,' Izawa replied shaking it briefly.

'Can I tell you something?' Matsushita said.

'Sure,' Izawa replied.

'You're the first one to make me miss the C-121 exit point,' Matsushita said, 'how did you do it?'

Izawa's expression became puzzled and, after glancing quickly at Kyosuke, he looked back at Matsushita with a sheepish smile, he scratched the back of his head and then said:

'I honestly have no idea.'

The guy stared at Izawa in disbelief for a short while, as though as he was trying to decide whether Izawa was trying to make fun of him luckily deciding that the Toyota driver was being totally serious. That made him smile back and, shaking his head a couple of times, Matsushita looked at the Nagano Alliance leader and said:

'He's one heck of a driver and he doesn't even know it.'

Yasuo let out a chuckle and, glancing at the Myogi Devils leader, he smiled and said:

'Now I understand what you said about them.'

Kyosuke wanted to ask what Taro Nakazato had said about them but, at that moment, a very tall and muscular guy with a black baseball cap covering his large head showed up right next to the Myogi Devils leader and, using a hushed tone of voice, he exchanged a few words with him. If everyone there found that weird, no one said anything about it, not wanting to risk making such a beast angry.

'Alright,' Taro said, 'we should get things going so, what do you say if we do the uphill race straight away?'

'Fine by me,' Kyosuke replied then, looking at Kazuya, he said, 'you're ready?'

'Of course,' Kazuya said.

'Good,' Taro said then, indicating the huge guy, he said, 'this is Kobayashi Kugo, he'll be racing you.'

'Nice to meet you,' Kazuya said smiling at the nearly two metres tall guy. At his one hundred and seventy six centimetres, Kazuya was one of the shortest members of the Golden Arrows and looked ridiculously dwarfed next to Kugo. Luckily, the huge guy seemed friendly enough and, before walking away, he even smiled back at Kazuya and speaking with a voice which was too high pitched to belong to such a large body, he said:

'Let's have a good race.'

With that he left to go and get his car, which was a good thing considering how Kazuya had trouble keeping serious, he tried to avoid looking at Eiji because he knew that if he did, he would probably crack up laughing. Instead, he glanced at Kyosuke and that made him remember about the reason why he'd volunteered to do the uphill race in the first place. That made Kazuya sober up and, without exchanging a single word with his leader, he too made his way towards his ride.

A few moments later, and with both Izawa and Matsushita having cleared their cars off the finish line, Kazuya had his dark red Honda Civic Type R lined up against a silver R36 which, in spite of being nearly ten years old, it looked and sounded even better than if it had been brand new. Kyosuke wished he could take a peek under the bonnet, if only to confirm the modifications which, he suspected, had been to the already powerful twin-turbo V6 engine.

'You're thinking the same thing I'm thinking?' Kazuya asked him sitting inside his car.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'you'll be fine.'

'I know,' Kazuya replied curving up one of the corners of his mouth in a lopsided grin then, at the same time as he made the window go up, Kyosuke heard the tunes of a fairly well known eurobeat song coming from the Civic's powerful speakers.

'Oh,' Junya gasped, 'he's _that_ serious?'

'It looks like it,' Kyosuke replied trying to keep a straight face.

'Why?' Junya asked him, 'I mean…what has made him…'

'No idea,' Kyosuke lied.

In reality, he knew very well that it had been Akito's promotion to F3 what had made the usually easy going Kazuya get so serious about this race and, knowing how rare that was Kyosuke vowed he wouldn't miss a moment of it. For this reason, he pulled his phone out and pressed the fast-dial button to call his younger brother.

'Aniki,' Seisuke replied, 'is it true that Izawa's won the race?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke said, 'he did a very good job.'

'Cool,' Seisuke replied, he was obviously going to add something when Kyosuke interrupted him:

'Listen, Kazuya is going to start his race now, make sure you record as much as you can with your phone.'

'Alright,' Seisuke said, 'Aniki…'

'Yes?'

'Are you going to call Kizuna or…'

'What for?' Kyosuke replied all-too-quickly.

'To tell her about Izawa,' Seisuke explained as patiently as he could.

'No,' Kyosuke replied feeling slightly silly, 'I'm sure Izawa will call her himself.'

'Alright,' Seisuke said.

'Now focus on this race, okay?' Kyosuke asked his brother.

'Of course,' Seisuke said.

With this, Kyosuke pressed the button to close the communication when he noticed Izawa's enquiring look.

'You should call Kizuna,' Kyosuke said.

'I've already emailed her,' Izawa explained, 'but what's with Kazuya…I…'

'You'll understand in a minute,' Kyosuke simply said refusing to give any further explanation

A handful of seconds later, a member of the Nagano Alliance stood in front of the two cars which, unlike at the summit, could now be side-by-side and, raising both of his arms, started counting down from five, at the "GO!" both Nissan and Honda took off with both Kyosuke and Junya already recording every instant of it.

'Wow,' they heard Eiji's and Izawa's surprised gasps.

That made both guys smile at the same time. Their grins got only wider when they saw Kazuya easily overtaking the theoretically more powerful R36 as they got to the first corner, both cars disappearing around it immediately afterwards. Kyosuke wished he could get onboard his RZ-1 and to follow them especially when seeing the astonished expressions appearing on Taro Nakazato and the rest of the Myogi Devils.

'What was that?' Izawa asked his leader.

'That,' Junya replied instead, 'is my baby cousin driving seriously.'

'That doesn't happen often, does it?' Eiji asked him.

'Not often enough,' Junya replied sounding a tad disappointed.

'Why not?' Yuta then asked, intervening in the conversation for the first time.

'No idea,' Junya replied honestly, 'but,' he continued, glancing quickly at Kyosuke before adding, 'if he always drove like this…'

'…he'd probably be better than most of us,' Kyosuke finished for him.

'Even better than you?' Izawa asked as though as he refused to believe that.

'Very likely,' Kyosuke replied, 'unfortunately, it's always been very hard for him to find the right disposition to be serious about his racing all the time and this lack of consistency of his is his biggest handicap as a racer.'

'Maybe,' Eiji ventured with a trace of malice on his voice, 'he thinks he's too good for his opponents.'

'On the contrary,' Kyosuke replied calmly.

'Due to his fickle personality,' an equally calm Junya explained, 'he gets bored with things very easily and triggering his interest is nearly as hard as for him to take himself as seriously as he should, therefore, most of the time he doesn't even think of himself as a proper racer.'

'Why did he join the team then?' Izawa asked before he could help himself.

'He helped me found it,' Kyosuke replied, 'I met Kazuya in my first year of high school, he found it vaguely amusing how I kept reading and talking about cars and because of that he decided that we had to become friends. By the time Seisuke joined us the following year, Kazuya was as enthusiastic about the Golden Arrows as we were. He even convinced Junya who was our senpai to join us at the Centre for our first training sessions.'

'That was the beginning, right?' Yuta asked him.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'back then we were all underage so we needed to practice at the Centre and that's when I noticed that whereas us three, Seisuke, Junya and myself, were very serious and dedicated about getting better, Kazuya took it as a pastime to keep himself entertained and not much else. That was until one day when,' he stopped speaking glancing at Junya quickly before continuing, 'when we introduced him to Akito.'

'What happened then?' an intrigued Izawa asked him.

'We don't know why,' Kyosuke replied, 'but when he found out that Akito wanted to be a professional it made Kazuya get seriously competitive about it. He even challenged Akito to a race but…'

'…that brat didn't accept,' Junya nearly spat.

'He didn't?' Eiji replied sounding surprised.

'Junya,' Kyosuke said, 'you know well that the reason why Akito couldn't accept that challenge was because his father didn't allow him to race with cars.'

'Excuses,' Junya dismissed.

'He was twelve,' Kyosuke explained ignoring Junya's tone, 'and much, much too young to race with a full size car against someone four years older than him. Even if Takumi-san had allowed him to, I wouldn't have let Akito race against Kazuya.'

Junya was about to add something to that when they heard someone from the Myogi Devils shouting something at his own peers which reminded them that they were in the middle of a gathering with another two teams. That made Kyosuke a little mad with himself for having distracted himself from the race and was about to call Seisuke again when his phone started ringing, he didn't even need to check the display to see that it was his younger brother.

'Yes?'

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'that was amazing, I didn't get much footage but what I got…I'll send it to you now.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'I take he's still ahead.'

'Do you even need to ask?' Seisuke retorted cheekily.

'Of course not,' he replied.

With that, he pressed the button and, a couple of moments later, he received a video message from his brother containing what little Seisuke had managed to record with his mobile phone. Soon, the four members of the Golden Arrows got around their leader to see it.

The video feed was incredibly steady, which was to be expected considering it had been taken by a future surgeon, and it showed the dark red GD4 closing up as it came from one of the steep right turns, it then covered the entire distance which separated it from the following corner and, as smoothly as if it travelled on rails, the car disappeared around the wall.

It took the R36 a full five seconds to show up and, even though the Nissan's engine was nearly twice as powerful as the Honda's and that Kugo's driving wasn't bad at all, it wasn't anywhere near as good as Kazuya's and Kyosuke noticed how the R36 corrected its trajectory towards the corner's entry point a couple of times making it lose a few precious tenths of a second.

Kyosuke knew that, unless something happened to the Honda, Kazuya had this race in the bag.

_To be continued…_


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifteen_

Despite the music pumping loudly through his Honda's sound system, a highly concentrated Kazuya noticed how Kugo Kobayashi's R36 was finally catching up with him and, with only a third of the course to go, he could now clearly see the GT-R's long and triangular shaped headlights reflected on the rear view mirror.

He was certain he hadn't dropped his speed, if anything he'd been pushing his car harder than ever before knowing that with over five hundred and fifty horse power, the Nissan's four litre engine was more than twice as powerful as his GD4. In addition to that, Kugo's driving had become sharper as they got to the less steep part of the course making Kazuya suspect that the guy had kept his distance on purpose.

With the flatter road and longer straights characteristic of this sector of the course, it would only be too easy for the R36 to use its superior power to overtake the GD4 and that made Kazuya start feeling rather uneasy. Because of that, he increased the pace a notch as both cars approached a series of short and concatenated corners, touching the brakes only when it was strictly necessary so that he would not lose speed.

'Let's see if you can follow me now,' he muttered.

Kazuya noticed how the gap between the two cars widened again and, as he swept through the corner, he was already thinking of the strategy he would adopt once they got to the final section of the pass. It all depended on whether he managed to keep the small advantage he had now and if he got to the section of the pass where the road became even narrower. Then, there would be no way for Kugo to overtake him.

Squeezing as much power as he could out of his two litre engine, Kazuya covered one of the last difficult corners of the course, a hairpin like right hand turn which went around the wall that covered most of the pass. Kazuya chose to forget about drifting and drove around it the fastest possible way: by grip.

After that, he saw ahead of him the two short straights and, not far from there, the point which was considered the finish line. Kazuya went to check his current speed when he also caught a glimpse of the temperature gauges. The digital dials marked something which was definitely not healthy and, as he cruised along the first straight, he pressed the command at the steering wheel and turned the music's volume down so that he could listen to the sound coming from the engine.

It was suffering.

Glancing quickly at the rear view mirror, he saw that the GT-R was still at least a couple of seconds away from him, he then checked the road ahead of him: he only had a couple of corners and a short straight ahead of him. He knew that if he slowed down now, the Nissan would probably overtake him using the straight but if he didn't, there was a definite risk that the overheated engine would not make it to the end.

'Crap,' he said biting his lower lip in frustration.

Doing what he knew was the only sensible thing to do, he lifted his foot off the accelerator just before the penultimate turn, a gentle left-hander. He used part of the inertia the car already had to make it through that corner then, at the short straight which led to the last corner of the pass, he just gave enough gas so that the car would make it up what thankfully was a slight incline.

Kazuya knew that he'd messed up with his strategy when the two cars reached the final corner and he saw that the advantage he'd built up during the race was gone and by the time they got to the left-hand turn's entry, the GT-R's front bumper was grazing the Honda's rear one and, just then, Kazuya knew that Kugo was going to stage his first and only attack.

The two contenders knew that the race would finish when the two cars reached the part of the pass where the white line that divided the road in two disappeared because that marked the start of the single lane which went all the way up to Mt Usui's summit. That spot was just a few metres ahead of them and Kazuya could now clearly see the amount of people gathered there waiting for the end of the race.

Too busy to care about that, he did his best to prevent Kugo from overtaking him and, while he somehow managed to keep the GT-R behind him as the two cars entered the corner, the R36's superior engine made it possible for Kugo to level with him the instant the cleared the turn and reached the last straight of the pass. Kazuya knew that unless he did something drastic, Kugo would just pull away and claim the win for the Myogi Devils. Swallowing hard, he bit his lower lip and, whispering to his GD4, Kazuya whispered:

'Sorry.'

He then opened the throttle once again and, fighting the urge to close his eyes, Kazuya darted past the silver car with just enough time to spot Kizuna and Masato among the crowd of people at the finish line. He had won the race for the Golden Arrows but, somehow, Kazuya didn't feel satisfied, if anything, he felt emptier than when he'd started the race and, if he had to be honest, rather scared.

Stopping the car just in time to see Kugo's R36 crossing the line less than a couple of seconds after him, Kazuya started undoing the buckle of his four point racing seatbelt when he started seeing some misty white vapour coming out from the grid of the Honda's bonnet. He'd never felt anymore tense in his whole life and it took him all his willpower to turn the engine off and climb out of the car.

'Oh wow,' he heard Kizuna say.

'What did…' Masato tried.

'Please be quiet,' Kazuya begged them.

He pressed the button on the key to release the bonnet's cover and, walking around the car, he pulled it open and he saw a rather large amount of steam coming out of it. He hooked the cover in place and waited until the vapour cleared to start assessing the damage done to the engine. He was so distraught by the sight that he failed to notice Kugo walking towards him with a worried expression on his big face.

'Is everything alright?' he asked with his weirdly high pitched voice.

'Yes,' Kazuya replied as firmly as he could.

'Er…' Kizuna hesitated, 'do you want me to call…'

'No,' Kazuya said, 'I think I'll let it cool off for a bit then I'll see if I can take it home.'

'If you need a truck,' Kugo intervened, 'I'm sure we can get one for you.'

'That's really nice,' Kazuya said sincerely, 'but it'll be fine, we'll be fine.'

'Alright,' Kugo said then, smiling awkwardly, he added, 'you've beaten me, even though I did my best.'

Kazuya took a moment to observe the guy and, just then, he decided that the humongous guy was being honest, in fact, looking at him a bit more closely, the guy was just like an overgrown kid who wouldn't hurt a fly even if provoked. For this reason, he smiled back at Kugo and said:

'Thanks for racing me fairly.'

'Likewise,' Kugo replied and his goofy smile widened then, after glancing at Kizuna and Masato, he rejoined his team mates who, instead of being angry at him for losing the race, patted him on the shoulder or, rather, his mid-back, reminding him that it was a friendly gathering and that their leader would not be mad at him.

'He's a nice guy after all,' Masato commented.

'Thankfully,' Kizuna added, 'I mean, can you imagine if he ever got pissed at anyone?'

'I'd run for my life,' Masato said visibly shivering with fear.

Kazuya nodded his agreement before he returned his attention to his car's engine. The mist had finally cleared and, from what he could see, there was no immediate damage to any of the parts of the engine, however, the radiator probably would need to be refilled before he could turn the engine back on.

'I wonder if there's a fountain anywhere nearby,' he said to no one in particular.

'I have some water and coolant in my car,' Kizuna said.

'You do?' Kazuya asked her raising his eyebrows in astonishment.

'Yeah,' she replied, 'my car's running well but it's old so you never know when something might go wrong with it. Also, Suzuki-san told me to carry whatever I might need to repair it at any time; he said that it wouldn't be safe for a girl to be stranded in the middle of the night.'

'He's right,' Masato commented nodding his approval.

'Well,' Kazuya said sounding almost shy, 'if you don't mind, I'd…'

'I'll go and get it for you,' Kizuna interrupted offering him a smile

While Kizuna went to get the containers from her car, Masato helped Kazuya get the car out of the way, politely declining the few offers of help they got from some of the curious bystanders who, seeing that there was nothing to see there, they returned their attention to the preparations of the final race, the downhill battle between the Myogi Devils and the Nagano Alliance.

'Are you going to watch that?' Masato asked Kazuya.

'Yes,' Kazuya replied, 'it's not like we can do anything to it now.'

'True,' Masato said then, lowering his voice, he said, 'you were really pushing it, weren't you?'

'Of course,' he replied, 'it was the only thing I could do, I mean, that R36 is horribly powerful, you should have seen just how easily that Kobayashi levelled with me and I bet you anything he wasn't even pushing it.'

'That's likely,' Masato agreed.

Just then they saw Kizuna carrying a five litre tank of water and a smaller container with the coolant. Masato hurried to help her with the water but Kizuna smirked at him as she walked towards the Honda and, putting it down next to it, she then placed the coolant right on top of it.

'You're stronger than I thought,' Kazuya commented giving her a look full of admiration.

Kizuna fought the urge to roll her eyes up and, smiling at him, she said:

'I'm as tall as you are, what makes you think I'd be weaker than you?'

'Well,' an unfazed Kazuya said, 'I'm a guy, and therefore I'm stronger.'

'You want to test that theory?' Kizuna challenged him.

'Er…'

'I wouldn't,' Masato said seriously, 'for some reason, I kind of think she'd beat the heck out of _both_ of us.'

Kazuya seemed like he was ready to argue that point then, probably reflecting on it, he smiled and said:

'That's probably true.'

Kizuna smiled at both guys in a smug way and, just then, she felt her phone vibrate in the front pocket of her combat trousers. She stopped smiling when she saw the name on the display: it was her mother.

'Aren't you going to answer?' Masato asked her.

'No,' Kizuna replied feeling very guilty, 'I…it's just my mother, I'll call her back as soon as I get back home,' ignoring the way the two guys were looking at each other, Kizuna put her phone back into her pocket and pointing at the Honda's engine, she asked Kazuya, 'do you mind if I take a look?'

'No,' Kazuya replied, 'be my guest.'

She nodded and, for the next few minutes, using a small flashlight, she started inspecting the numerous hoses, its connections to the several parts of the car, noticing how, asides of a few watermarks here and there, everything else looked extremely tidy. That made her look up at Kazuya and, trying to keep a very casual tone of voice, she asked:

'Did Kyosuke help you with the car?'

'Yes,' Kazuya replied, 'he's the one who helped me with the tuning.'

'I see,' Kizuna replied, 'that's a very well done job.'

'I agree,' Masato added.

'Yes,' Kazuya said, 'he's going to be one heck of an engineer when he graduates.'

Both Kizuna and Masato nodded their agreement.

Knowing they had nothing else to do until the engine cooled off a bit, Kazuya closed the bonnet's lid and, after making sure the overheated car was locked up, he walked back to where everybody was, trying to get a good spot from which to watch the start of the third and final event of the night. Settling behind one of the guardrails near the starting line, the three Golden Arrows members observed the two cars driving past.

There was a metallic green MX7 roadster with a big spoiler and a bigger set of fenders and the Nagano Alliance logo stuck onto the hood, near one of the two retractable headlights the car had. Ahead of the Mazda, the Myogi Devils representative drove another roadster, a blue Toyota MR3, the engine of which was definitely not the stock one.

'That's Morioka Jun,' Kazuya announced seeing a tall-ish guy with short brown hair climbing out of the MR3, 'his family owns an onsen in Isobe,' he explained, 'my mother likes going there some weekends and I used to go there as a kid too. I had no idea he was also into racing.'

Masato was going to say something when Morioka, noticing Kazuya there, said something to the guy driving the MX7 and, an instant later, he was walking towards where the three Golden Arrows were, he then said:

'Hey, long time no see.'

'Yeah,' Kazuya said, 'it's been two years, right?'

'More or less,' Jun replied, 'when Kobayashi mentioned your name I thought it was a coincidence…'

'Nope,' Kazuya said, 'it's me. How long have you been in the Myogi Devils?'

'Just a few months,' Jun replied, 'I got my license last Christmas and Nakazato-san was nice enough to to let me join his team. You're in the Golden Arrows, aren't you? Nakazato-san said your leader is a great racer.'

'He is,' Kazuya said.

'Well,' Jun said, 'I'm still too green to challenge him but, one day, who knows…'

Kazuya nodded once then, he said:

'Good luck with your race.'

'I'm going to need it,' Jun confessed then, lowering his tone of voice a little, he added, 'it's the first time I race in Mt Usui. To be honest, I didn't really want to race but Nakazato-san told me that I need to get experience and, after all, this is a friendly gathering so it's not such a huge disaster if we lose.'

'That's true,' Kazuya said, 'but I'm sure you'll do your best to win, right?'

'Of course,' Jun replied with a smile then, as if it had just occurred to him, he said, 'why don't you do the countdown for us?'

'Sure,' Kazuya accepted and after exchanging a quick glance with his team mates, he followed Jun towards his car and, from their position behind the guardrail, Kizuna and Masato observed while the two racers prepared themselves for the race, then, just a few moments later, they heard the two engines roaring and above that noise, Kazuya's deep voice shouting:

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

The two cars took off, with Morioka leading the way then, with everybody hurrying up to see what happened after the first right hander, where the race proper started, they saw as the MX7 quickly took the lead overtaking Morioka with such an absurd ease that it made all three of them feel very disappointed.

'The race is long,' Masato said, 'he'll get back ahead.'

'I hope so,' Kazuya agreed.

'You're rooting for him, right?' Kizuna asked.

'Of course,' Kazuya said, 'if I had known he was getting into racing, I would have recruited him for our team. He's a great guy and he would have been a good addition to the Golden Arrows, not to mention that that the engine of that MR3 of his sounds positively wild.'

'Too true,' Masato said.

Right then, Kizuna felt her mobile phone vibrate once again. Knowing she could no longer ignore her mother, she pulled it out of the pocket feeling slightly surprised when, instead of seeing her mother's name on the display, she saw Kyosuke's. It took her a few more seconds to press the button so she could reply.

'Hello Kyosuke,' she said trying to sound as calm as possible.

Hearing that made Kazuya whisper furiously:

'Don't tell him about the car!'

'Hi,' Kyosuke said, 'what took you so long?'

'I'm sorry,' she told him, 'I take you know Kazuya's won, right?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke said, 'Kobayashi called Nakazato just now, I was hoping one of you would call me too.'

'I'm sorry,' Kizuna repeated feeling rather bad hearing the disappointment in his voice.

'It's alright,' Kyosuke said, 'Kobayashi also mentioned that something happened to Kazuya's car.'

'Oh,' Kizuna gasped, 'that's nothing major, it just overheated a bit,' she added ignoring the murderous look Kazuya was giving her, 'we'll just replace the water and the coolant that's lost, I've checked it myself and…'

'I'll come up as soon as the race is over,' Kyosuke decided.

'Ah,' she said, 'okay, I guess it's…'

'Kizuna,' he interrupted her and said, 'Seisuke's calling me. Ask Kazuya to wait for me, okay?'

'Alright,' Kizuna replied feeling slightly dejected. She felt even worse when Kyosuke just closed the communication without saying anything else. She knew it was infantile to expect him to treat her any differently from the rest of the members of the team but, somehow, it hurt her a little to see that he didn't trust her mechanic skills enough to let her complete a simple chore such as refilling the radiator of a car.

'Is everything alright?' Masato asked her.

'Yeah,' she lied she then looked at Kazuya and added, 'Kyosuke found out about the problem from Nakazato, he also said he'll be coming up after the race to help you with it.'

'Typical of Kyosuke,' Kazuya replied shaking his head once.

'What do you mean?' Masato asked.

'He's unable to let others work on his creatures.' Kazuya explained, 'that's why I didn't want to tell him about it. I swear, the way he acts with the cars he's worked on is like they were his babies or something like that.'

Masato let out a soft chuckle and said:

'I guess it suits him.'

'What does?' Kizuna asked with an even tone.

'The whole fatherly-figure,' Masato replied.

'Look who's talking,' Kazuya countered.

'What? Me?' Masato asked.

'Yeah,' Kazuya replied, 'Eiji, Kei and especially Yuta look up to you, don't they?'

'Not really,' Masato said honestly, 'we've always been friends and the only reason why I was their "leader" was because I'm the oldest and the one who got his driving license first. But they've never seen me the way you…well, us, see Kyosuke-san. He really has the charisma of a true leader.'

Both Kazuya and Kizuna nodded solemnly.

Just then, they heard a huge commotion coming from the side of the road where a few of the Myogi Devils had gathered, one of them had a worried expression while he listened to whoever had called him on his mobile phone. That made all three Golden Arrows walk towards them so that they could figure out what was happening. As usual, it was Kazuya who spoke for them:

'What's wrong?'

'We're not sure,' one of the Devils replied.

They waited for a couple of minutes before the guy on the phone finally pressed the button to close the communication then, letting out a relieved sigh, he looked at the group of people around him and said:

'Jun's fine.'

'What happened to him?' another one of the Devils asked.

'They were covering the C-121 when Jun lost it at the exit, he managed to avoid crashing against the wall but he's now fifteen seconds behind Kubota's Mazda, I hope he remembers what Nakazato-san told him.'

Kizuna was about to open her mouth to speak when she noticed the way both Kazuya and Masato looked at her, that made her realise that it was none of her business to ask about another team's strategy and, copying what Kazuya and Masato did, they just waited to see what happened next.

Down at the base, Kyosuke had just finished talking to his brother, asking him and Kei to wait for ten minutes before they started driving down to the base so that they could join the rest of the Golden Arrows. He then walked back to where Junya was, standing next to his light blue S18, seeing that Izawa was talking to Eiji while Yuta was, once again, locked inside his own Silvia with his attention focused on the display of his mobile phone, probably hoping that he'd see a UFO through the webcam he was connected to.

'Now I understand what Kei said,' Junya told him.

'About?' Kyosuke asked.

'That Yuta is beyond weird,' he replied.

'He's a little odd,' Kyosuke accepted, 'but I think he's pretty harmless.'

'Speaking of harm,' Junya said, 'did you figure out what that cousin of mine did to his poor ride?'

'Nothing major,' Kyosuke replied, 'it seems like he overheated the engine a bit, he was probably pushing it too much but, to be honest, I think that if he hadn't pushed it, he wouldn't have won the race.'

'What do you mean?' Junya asked getting a little defensive.

'Don't get me wrong,' Kyosuke replied, 'but if it hadn't been because tonight Kazuya was in full combat mode, he wouldn't have pushed it as much as he did and with the R36 being as powerful as it is, there would have been no way for Kazuya to keep Kobayashi behind for the whole race. The only thing which worried me was whether the Honda would be able to keep up with Kazuya's rhythm.'

'That's true,' Junya accepted, 'in any case, it's a good thing we've won both of our races.'

'Yes, it is,' Kyosuke agreed the, he added, 'after the end of this one, I'll need to drive up to check on your cousin's car. I would appreciate it if you and Seisuke could lead everyone out of here, we'll regroup down at the train station right before the motorway, okay?'

'Alright,' Junya said.

A few minutes later, the two of them, together with Eiji and Izawa heard the rumbling sound of an engine. Everyone at the galleries who was affiliated in any way with the Nagano Alliance seemed to get ready to celebrate what they thought was going to be an easy win when, all of a sudden, coming from around the last corner, they did see Kubota's MX7 but, just behind him, they also saw the Toyota MR3. Unbelievably enough, Jun Morioka had managed to catch up with the representative of the Nagano Alliance.

'How did he do that?' Eiji asked.

No one replied to his question for they were too busy watching the Mazda as it crossed the line with only a few seconds of advantage. Everyone felt a bit sorry when they saw the depressed expression on Jun's face when the poor guy climbed out of his Toyota. Kyosuke admired Taro Nakazato for he was the first one to reach him and, passing an arm around Jun's shoulders, he smiled at him and said:

'I have no idea what you did but that was an amazing recovery.'

'But I lost…'

'It's alright,' Taro said, 'we'll have our revenge in the next gathering,' he then let him go and, talking to Kyosuke, he added, 'we'll be meeting up in Mt Myogi in June, do you think you guys can join us there too?'

'Of course,' he replied.

'This time,' Taro added, 'the leaders will race, I'm hoping you'll race me there.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke accepted then, looking at Yasuo, he added, 'if you don't mind, that is.'

'Not at all,' Yasuo replied, 'to be honest, I'd like to race you too but we've got plenty of time for that.'

'We do,' Kyosuke confirmed.

'Great,' Taro intervened then, he added, 'I'll get in touch with you two to set the date, okay?'

'Sure,' Yasuo said while Kyosuke just nodded once.

After that, the Nagano Alliance leader walked away from them so that he could go and celebrate that Kubota had managed to secure the only win his team had achieved. Taro didn't look particularly depressed about the fact that his team had lost both of their races and, still smiling at Jun Morioka, he said:

'Let's go home.'

'Sure,' Jun replied looking slightly relieved.

Soon, all the racers started getting onboard their cars and a few minutes later even the galleries started clearing away. Just then, Kyosuke saw his brother's white RZ-1 followed by Kei's white EVO X, Seisuke stopped just next to him and was climbing out of the car when Kyosuke told him:

'I'll go up and help Kazuya, you and the rest will go to the train station just off the motorway, we'll regroup there, okay?'

'Alright,' Seisuke said.

Without waiting to see the six cars driving away, Kyosuke climbed into his RZ-1 and started driving up Mt Usui finding it slightly amusing how he was the only one driving uphill. Because of that, he made it to the top in just under ten minutes and, there, he saw Masato, Kazuya and, more importantly Kizuna.

Seeing her he felt the usual tightening around his heart which made him wish he hadn't agreed to being "just friends" with her but using every ounce of his self-control, he counted up to ten and, once he made sure he would refrain himself from doing or saying anything stupid, he got out of the car. He noticed that almost everyone had left and that there were only a handful of cars parked somewhere up the road. He imagined that they were couples who had decided to stay there to have some time on their own.

Lucky them, Kyosuke thought feeling slightly jealous.

He then faced the three members of this team and, hoping he sounded as business-like as usual, he said:

'Alright, the guys are grouping at the station just off the motorway and…'

'Kyosuke, I…' Kizuna started.

'…I want you two to drive there too,' Kyosuke continued as if she hadn't interrupted him.

'I'd like to help you with…'

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke interrupted her, 'wait for us there, we'll all drive back home together.'

Not having any other option she nodded once.

'Thank you,' Kyosuke replied.

'Let's go,' a seemingly oblivious Masato said.

With a heavy heart, Kizuna followed her team mate back to where the two of them had parked their cars and as Masato climbed into his red Toyota Vera, Kizuna saw Kyosuke lifting the bonnet's cover of the Honda while Kazuya explained to him what had happened during the race. She felt rather depressed that Kyosuke had not even thought of asking her to help but, again, two people were more than enough to refill a radiator so she wasn't really needed to complete the task.

Climbing into her car, she started driving away from Kyosuke.

She knew she wasn't being honest with herself and that, in reality, she wasn't hurt just because Kyosuke had refused to let her help with Kazuya's car. The real reasons why she was so depressed were because she wanted to be with him and, above all, she hadn't really liked the way he'd put her at the same level as the rest of the team, finding it most upsetting to see him speak to her in such a cold and detached manner.

'Idiot,' she admonished herself.

She'd been the one who had asked him to be friends and he was only behaving the way he did with the rest of the team and by doing that, he showed her that he respected her choice so it was her own fault if she now felt so miserable. She should have known better than to expect him to do anything different, after all, Kyosuke himself had told her that he was perfectly capable of separating his brain from his heart.

She should be happy that she'd got her way, shouldn't she? Kizuna tried to find an answer to that question while she followed Masato all the way to the train station there, parked alongside the pavement, she saw the cars of the other six members of the Golden Arrows. All six of them were out of the car, including Yuta who seemed to be rather happy about something.

'…I swear, it was one,' she heard him saying when she climbed out of the car.

'No way,' Seisuke said.

'Yeah,' Kei supported him, 'that was just a dot on the sky, for all we know it probably was a star.'

'Stars don't move,' Yuta countered.

'What's going on?' Masato asked after locking his Vera.

'We just saw one!' Yuta exclaimed, 'it was a UFO, it's been reported on the blog as well and…'

'That wasn't a UFO,' Eiji said as patiently as possible.

'It was…'

'Alright,' Masato interrupted knowing that he had to stop the argument from going anywhere, he then looked at Izawa and said, 'I heard you aced your race, well done mate!'

'Yeah,' Izawa said, 'it wasn't easy though...'

Kizuna observed the way her team mates talked about the race while her brain was still busy trying to figure out what she wanted to do with Kyosuke but to no avail, not even twenty minutes later when the Golden Arrows leader and Kazuya finally joined them, in fact, seeing him there made her feel even more confused.

'Everybody listen up,' Kyosuke ordered, 'Kazuya's car obviously works now but, just in case, I've decided that I'd like to take a good look at it so we'll be taking it to the Centre tonight. You all should drive ahead but we'll meet up at Akagi tomorrow evening, there's something I want to discuss with all of you, okay?'

'Alright,' Masato said.

'Aniki,' Seisuke added, 'do you want me to wait or…'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'just make sure Kizuna gets home safely, okay?'

'Sure,' Seisuke replied.

With that and after exchanging a brief glance with her, Kyosuke got back into his RZ-1 expecting everyone to follow suit. She almost didn't notice when a grateful Kazuya returned the now empty containers.

'Thanks a lot,' he said.

'No problem,' she managed to mutter.

She put them both back into the boot of her car and, a few minutes later, she was already following the small caravan of cars as they travelled west on they way back home. Kizuna nearly cried seeing how she quickly lost sight of the yellow RZ-1 while she followed Seisuke's white and newer version of the same car.

An utterly depressed Kizuna arrived to her apartment block, parking her car at the usual spot. She then waved at Seisuke to tell him that everything was fine, only then the youngest of the Takahashi brothers decided to drive away so that he too could head back home. Kizuna just removed her shoes and her big sweater before she just plunged into her bed knowing that it would take her ages before she fell asleep.

In fact, it seemed like it had been minutes since she'd closed her eyes when, the morning after at around eight o'clock in the morning, Kizuna woke up to the sound of her mobile phone vibrating still in the pocket of her trousers. She picked it up and, with a very sleepy voice, she said:

'Hello?'

'Oh!' her mother said, 'you're _still_ sleeping?'

'What?' Kizuna asked her brain still numb with sleep, 'Mum…'

'I called you last night but when you didn't pick it up I thought you might be sleeping, I checked the time converter and it was around one o'clock your time. I hope I didn't wake you up or…'

'No, you didn't,' she said, and in a way, it wasn't a lie.

'Good,' Salina said, 'it's eight in the morning, isn't it?'

'Yes it is,' Kizuna replied feeling finally awake, 'did anything happen?'

'No,' Salina said, 'I just wanted to talk to you.'

'Ah,' Kizuna gasped, she then yawned a bit, 'how are you?'

'I'm fine,' Salina said, 'but listen, I was talking to your uncle yesterday and you know what he said?'

'No, what did he say?' Kizuna asked, she was now sitting up on her bed, propped against her pillows.

'He reckons that you've got a boyfriend,' Salina said.

'What?' she nearly shouted, 'Mum I…'

'Hey,' she interrupted her, 'it's fine if you do. I've too noticed that you've mentioned a certain Kyosuke in a few of our calls and you've written about him to Uncle Josh in several of the emails you've sent him.'

'Mum…'

'Is it true?' Salina asked her in the sort of non-judgemental tone she knew her mother used to get her to be honest. For this reason, Kizuna let out a long sigh and decided to tell her a semi-skimmed version of the truth: yes, she liked a guy and he liked her back but she now found herself with a huge dilemma, 'well,' her mother said after she'd listened to it all, 'to be honest, I fail to see what the problem is.'

'Mum, did you listen to what I just said?'

'Yes, I did,' Salina replied, 'but, you're making a problem where there isn't one. He likes you too, right?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'but I promised you I wouldn't let anything distract me from my studies and…'

'Honey,' she said, 'a boyfriend needn't be a distraction. I know you're focused enough to keep up with your studies and, after all, you don't know what fate has in hold for you. Dating someone doesn't necessarily mean tying your future to him forever, you're too young to worry about that anyway.'

'But my promise…'

'Kizuna,' Salina interrupted her, 'I never made you promise you wouldn't have a boyfriend. You dated that Steve McAndrews during your senior year, didn't you?'

'We just went to the cinema a couple of times, that's hardly dating,' she explained.

'Didn't you two go to prom together as well?' she asked her.

'Yeah,' Kizuna replied, 'don't remind me,' then, before her mother could say anything to that, she asked, 'you don't think it's a bad idea if I start seeing someone then?'

'No, of course not,' Salina replied firmly.

By the time Kizuna closed the call and considering her conversations with Suzuki-san, Izawa and her own mother, she found she had at long last run out of excuses and she knew very well what she had to do. For this reason, she jumped out of bed and, stepping into the bathroom, she took a long shower, got dressed and, a few minutes later, she was inside her car trying to decide what to do next.

'Petrol,' she said to herself.

The 350Z's tank was nearly empty and that would give her more time to think of what to do. She would start by calling him the minute she had filled the Nissan with some high-octane; knowing Kyosuke, the guy had probably spent the night checking Kazuya's car so there was some hope that he was still at the Centre.

She was at the petrol station near the Arakawa Hospital, getting herself something to eat for breakfast at the small shop when she overheard a conversation between two guys who were also at the shop. They were talking about some car crash in Akagi but what made Kizuna pay attention to it was when one of them said:

'…it was pretty bad, that yellow Mazda was completely smashed up.'

_To be continued…_


	17. Chapter Sixteen

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Sixteen_

Knowing that unless she acted quickly her brain would freeze with fear, Kizuna forgot all about trying to buy herself something to eat and, disregarding the fact that she was being extraordinarily rude not to mention that she would probably freak them out, Kizuna walked towards the two guys and said:

'Excuse me but, could you please repeat what you just said?'

'Er…what…' one of the two guys hesitated.

'Who are you?' the other one asked.

'Please,' Kizuna insisted, 'you just said something about a yellow Mazda having crashed in Akagi. I have a…friend who drives one and I…'

'We took him to the Arakawa Hospital,' the first of the two guys said, 'I work as a paramedic there and he was in a pretty bad shape, I'm sorry if…'

Kizuna didn't even hear the rest of the sentence, she just rushed to the cashier and paying whatever the lady told her to pay, she hurried back to her car and without so much as thanking the boy who had just refilled the tank, she snatched the keys from him and climbed into the car racing towards the hospital.

It was nothing short of a miracle she didn't kill herself on the way there.

Leaving the car at the first spot she found, a quickly panicking Kizuna stopped just for long enough to lock the Nissan and then she ran as fast as she could to the main entrance. She felt as though as her heart would just choke her and by the time she reached the modern and spotlessly clean reception area, she was barely breathing. She grabbed herself to the counter and, with a very strained voice, she asked:

'I'm looking for a friend of mine he was brought in a few hours ago.'

'What's his name?' a young looking nurse asked sounding as soothing as possible.

'Takahashi Kyosuke,' Kizuna somehow managed to reply.

For some reason, that made the nurse do a double take and, with a frown appearing on her face, she asked:

'Are you sure about that?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'his name is Takahashi Kyosuke, he crashed his car in Mt Akagi and…'

'What's the matter?' another voice said.

The nurse got up and straightened as if she'd just seen the prime minister. A very confused Kizuna turned round towards the owner of that voice seeing an extremely petite middle aged woman wearing a doctor's gown. Kizuna was about to read her name on the ID card when she heard the nurse at the reception say:

'Doctor Takahashi, this person here says that someone called Takahashi Kyosuke was brought in earlier on.'

'Who are you?' the doctor asked looking up at Kizuna.

'Er…' she hesitated.

'Are you a friend of my son?' the doctor asked her.

That made Kizuna speechless. Her confounded brain was desperately trying to come up with something to say while she felt her panic reach a whole new level. If something had indeed happened to Kyosuke and he had indeed been brought to this hospital, Kizuna found it odd that his own mother didn't know about it.

'Are you alright?' the woman asked her.

'Er…I…'

'Listen,' the doctor said and this time she assumed the sort of tone of voice doctors used when trying to calm down hysterical patients, 'you're looking a little pale, would you like to take a seat?'

'No,' Kizuna finally replied, 'I just…I'm…Kyosuke…'

'My son isn't here,' Doctor Takahashi said, 'I know for a fact that he's been all night at the Motorsports Centre our family owns, the reason I know is that he called me just a few moments ago to tell me that he would stay there for the rest of the morning.'

'He's alright?' Kizuna asked sounding incredulous.

'As far as I know,' the doctor replied with a kind smile, 'he's safe and sound.'

That made Kizuna let out such a long sigh of relief that she felt her knees would give up on her. She even had to lean against a nearby wall while she passed her hand over her face. Kyosuke was fine. She had nothing to worry about. He wasn't hurt and Kizuna was so extremely happy about it that she felt like crying.

'What made you think he was hurt?' she somehow heard the doctor ask her.

Kizuna lifted her hand off her face and, looking at the woman, she noticed how her serious but kind expression was so similar to that of Kyosuke that she was surprised she hadn't noticed that before. Just as it happened to her whenever she talked to him she felt safe enough to be honest with his mother too:

'I heard someone saying that a yellow Mazda had crashed in Akagi and…I thought…'

'You thought it was my son,' she supplied.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied starting to feel a bit mortified and very ridiculous, 'I'm sorry about the fuss, I…'

'It's alright,' the doctor said then, she asked, 'your name is Kizuna Ethridge, isn't it?'

Kizuna felt her eyebrows rise in shock and she only managed to nod.

'I see,' the woman said, 'I understand now.'

'What…'

'It's alright,' she reassured her and for some reason her smile got only wider, 'like I said, my son is still at the Centre, but I'm pretty sure you'd rather see with your own eyes he's fine rather than taking my word for it.'

'But...' Kizuna started, 'how do you know my name?'

'My sons have been talking about you and my niece seems to be quite taken with you,' Doctor Takahashi replied, 'I've been looking forward to meeting you myself but, to be honest, I didn't think we'd meet like this.'

'I…'

'I've got to go now,' the doctor said checking her watch, 'there's a meeting I have to chair so I must get going or I'll be late. You're not looking quite so pale anymore, that means you're feeling better now, right?'

'Yes, I'm fine,' Kizuna assured her.

'Alright, I hope I'll see you again soon, hopefully in a much happier occasion,' she said with just a hint of sarcasm then, glancing at the nurse, she added, 'please continue with your work.'

'Yes ma'am,' the nurse replied. Kizuna saw the young woman sitting back down and starting with the data entry work she'd been doing before Kizuna had interrupted her. Doctor Takahashi smiled at Kizuna and started making her way along one of the hospital's corridors leaving her standing there feeling rather silly and as disoriented as a compass without its north.

Then, as though as her feet were moving against her will, she started first walking then running back towards her car there, she climbed into it and before she could even register what she was doing, she found herself driving to the Takahashi Motorsports Centre. There, she found Kyosuke himself waiting for her and everything became crystal clear to her.

The reason why she'd been so troubled with her decision to stay just friends with him, the reason why she'd been so reluctant to want more with him and the reason why she kept making up excuses not to admit what her heart had known almost from day one and the reason why she'd felt like she wanted to die when she thought he was hurt was a very simple yet frightening one.

She loved Kyosuke.

Kizuna was so shocked now that her brain had finally acknowledged that fact that she didn't even notice when Kyosuke walked towards her car then, with his usual serious expression on his face, seeing that she wasn't getting out of the car, he opened the door of the 350Z and, crouching next to her and said:

'Are you alright?'

That made her look at his handsome face and, before she could even register what she was doing, she unfastened her seatbelt throwing herself at him hugging him so tight that he needed every bit of his balance not to fall down on his butt, Kizuna didn't care about that, all that mattered to her was that Kyosuke wasn't hurt. She was so relieved to see him that she felt a couple of tears started rolling down her cheeks.

'Kizuna,' she heard him say with a weird sounding voice, 'you're making this so difficult for me.'

Only that made her realise what she was doing. Letting go of him, Kizuna tried and failed to regain some composure while blushing furiously. Meanwhile Kyosuke decided to stand up and take a step away from her.

'I'm sorry,' she said climbing out of the car with extreme difficulty, 'I…'

'My mum just called me,' Kyosuke explained, 'she said that you thought I was hurt or something like that.'

'Yes,' Kizuna admitted feeling horribly embarrassed.

'I take that's the reason why you…you know…'

Kizuna could only bring herself to shake her head.

'It's not?' Kyosuke asked and he did sound a little hopeful.

'No,' she said, 'I…' she hesitated. Now that the moment had come, she simply didn't know what to say. She knew Kyosuke was waiting for the explanation he deserved but no matter how hard she raked her brain, she didn't know how to put into words what she'd been feeling in the past hour. For this reason, she decided to let her actions speak for her and, before her courage would falter, she took a step towards him, placed her hands onto his shoulders and, getting on her tiptoes, she shyly pressed her lips against his.

'Kizuna,' he breathed the instant she stopped kissing him. He now looked as flabbergasted as she felt at her own boldness.

'That's my answer,' she still managed to say.

'Your what?' he asked, Kizuna noticed how his lips started quivering a little and then, very slowly, they curved up forming an amazed smile, 'Kizuna…you just kissed me, didn't you?'

'I did,' she confirmed and for some bizarre reason, she started smiling too.

'Why did you…'

'Kyosuke,' she said, 'I've been an idiot.'

'What…'

'Please don't interrupt me,' she begged him, 'I just don't think I can say this again if you do.'

'Alright,' he said clearly egging her on.

'I like you and you like me so I want us to go out together.'

That made his smile widen and a very pleased and happy expression appeared on his face. He still didn't say anything, probably deciding to wait to see if she had something else to say. She did.

'I know I said I wanted to focus on my studies and, to be honest, I still do, but I know it's stupid to think that my feelings for you will go away so, I think that we should give it a go and see what happens.'

Kyosuke nodded rather enthusiastically.

'I'm not sure what will happen in four years time,' she continued, 'I might still want to go back to the US but that's a really long time away and it's useless to think that we can continue being friends feeling this way.'

'I agree,' he said.

'So,' she continued, 'I was kind of wondering if…'

'Wait,' he stopped her, 'if you don't mind,' he added, 'I'd like to do the asking.'

'What?'

'Kizuna,' he said getting suddenly serious, 'would you please go out with me?'

She looked a little startled for an instant then, with a smile on her face, she nodded and said:

'I'd love to.'

Closing the short distance between them, Kyosuke folded his arms around her and, placing his right hand on the back of her head, he pressed her against his body. Kizuna felt him trembling a little, as though as he was making a huge effort to contain his feelings, probably fearing he'd crush her out of sheer happiness.

'Thank you,' she heard him mutter over the top of her head.

She just smiled and, just then, she passed her arms around his body hugging him too. She had never felt any happier in her whole life and, for one moment, she forgot all the doubts she'd harboured up to then, deciding that she would stop worrying about their future. There would be plenty of time for that later.

'Kizuna,' he said pulling her away a bit but without letting her go, 'there's one more thing I'd like to ask you.'

'Sure,' she replied looking up at him.

'Did you really think I would crash my car in Akagi of all places?'

'Er…' she started then, with a sheepish smile, she said, 'I wasn't thinking straight, I guess.'

'No, you probably weren't,' he agreed with a smile, 'but if that's what it took for you to say what you've just said, I almost wish I…'

'Don't say it,' she admonished him frowning in worry, 'I nearly died when I thought you…'

He silenced with a kiss and, for some weird reason, she didn't really mind. He stopped kissing her all too soon and said:

'Just so you know, you're the first girl I've ever kissed.'

'Really?' she asked looking startled and more than a little incredulous.

'Yes,' he replied sounding honest.

'You've never…really?' she repeated then, without waiting for an answer, she gasped, 'how is that possible?'

'I've never had a girlfriend,' he confessed, 'but don't tell my brother or he'll die of shock. I think he kind of suspects it but if he ever hears it out loud, I'm sure he'll have a nervous breakdown or something.'

'Alright,' she said trying not to smile, 'I'll be a tomb.'

'Thanks,' he replied then, as if he'd just noticed that they were still hugging each other, he got a little embarrassed and released her. Kizuna felt somewhat incomplete now that she was no longer in his arms but she tried to ignore the fact the best way she could, 'so,' he continued, 'what would you like us to do?'

'What about?' she asked him feeling suddenly confused.

'Our date,' he reminded her, 'what do you want us to do?'

'I don't know,' she replied, 'I'm not such a huge expert, I've only been on a couple of dates with a guy from high school and we just went to the movies. If you want, we could go and see what's on at the cinema.'

'I have a better idea,' he said, 'what do you say if we go to Tokyo? I bet you've never been there.'

'No, I haven't,' she admitted.

'Traffic there is murder so if you don't mind, it's better if we leave our cars here, we can take the train and then visit the main sights using the underground: it's one of the most efficient networks in the world.'

'That sounds really good,' she said, 'if you don't have any lectures scheduled, we could go on Saturday.'

'That's perfect,' Kyosuke said, 'now, since you're here, do you want to help me with something?'

Even though she didn't have the faintest idea of what he wanted help for, she nodded and smiled at him when she saw him taking her hand in his then, for the first time ever, she and Kyosuke walked towards the Centre's main building holding hands and looking like a proper couple. Kizuna was so happy that she stubbornly ignored the little voice which told her that she had just got into something way too big for her.

Right now, she didn't care.

It turned out that Kyosuke, once he'd finished checking up Kazuya's car, he'd started working on a project for his engineering course and even though it was fairly advanced stuff, he allowed her to help him take the whole thing apart so that they could try and come up with different solutions which would optimize fuel consumption. Kizuna found it incredibly attractive how he spent several hours fiddling with the different parts, adjusting things here and there so that they would have different configurations. They were having so much fun together that it came as a bit of a shock when Keisuke Takahashi showed up at the workshop and said:

'Kyosuke…' he stopped talking when he noticed Kizuna there, 'oh, hello.'

'Hi,' Kizuna said shyly.

'What's wrong?' Kyosuke asked his uncle.

'Nothing,' the older man said, 'I'm heading home for lunch and I was wondering if you wanted to come too.'

'Kizuna?' he asked her.

'What?' she said.

'You want to come home with us?'

'What?' she repeated sounding, if possible, even more startled, 'you want me to come for lunch?'

'Yes,' he replied with a small smile.

'To your house?' she asked just to be double sure.

'Of course,' he answered, his smile widening a little.

'Er…'

Keisuke made an impatient sound with his mouth before he said:

'You think it's possible for you to make your mind up before dinnertime?'

Kizuna felt suddenly embarrassed and nodding a couple of times, she did her best to ignore the highly amused look Kyosuke was giving her. Then, not wanting to test Keisuke's seemingly limited patience, the two of them followed the owner of these facilities out of the door. Kizuna was going to walk back to her car when she felt Kyosuke's hand in hers; that made her glance at him with an inquisitive expression.

'Let's just take one car. We can come back later to pick yours up before tonight's meeting.'

'Alright,' she accepted.

Leaving her beloved Nissan parked there, she followed Kyosuke to the yellow RZ-1 while his uncle climbed into a fairly old MPV van. Kizuna was surprised to see the man's choice of vehicle; she expected that being an ex-racer he would drive the latest sports machine, not a sensible looking family man's car.

'Surprised?' Kyosuke asked seeing what she was looking at.

'Very,' she replied honestly.

'Wait until you see what we have in our garage,' he said.

Feeling excited at the thought of seeing what made Kyosuke so proud, she climbed into the RZ-1 feeling a little weird that she was riding shoutgun with the Golden Arrows leader. She knew that she wasn't the first person he'd taken in his car but she still felt very special as she adjusted the four point racing seatbelt.

While he inserted the key in the ignition, she observed the interior of the car: the dashboard was black and some parts were made of carbon fibre, chromed metal surrounded the air outlets, the sound system and its speakers and covering parts of the six gear shifter and the handles at the doors. The bucket seats were black with the rims in the same yellow as the car and the whole thing was sparkling clean, even the windows were smudge-free.

Kizuna stopped paying attention the instant he turned the engine on.

'Wow,' she gasped.

He just let out a soft chuckle.

'It sounds even better from the inside,' she commented.

'I know,' he replied a little smugly.

'You must have worked on it forever,' she said.

'A bit,' he admitted, 'but I had some invaluable help…'

The two of them spent the entire journey towards the Takahashi residence talking about Kyosuke's family and by the time they reached the two huge houses which formed their home, she was only a little surprised to see that they were in what probably was the poshest district of Maebashi but what really made her jaw drop was when they followed Keisuke into the family's massive garage.

'That's…' she started.

'Yep,' he said.

'And that's…'

'Yep,' Kyosuke repeated.

'Wow,' she gasped once again.

She somehow managed to climb out of the RZ-1 and not caring that Kyosuke's uncle was staring at her with an amused expression on his face, she walked around the two beautifully kept RX-7s: a gleaming white FC3S and an FD3S which was painted in the same yellow as Kyosuke's own Mazda.

'That one is mine,' Keisuke commented pointing at the FD.

'Whose is the other one?' she managed to ask unable to decide which one to look at.

'My dad's,' Kyosuke replied his voice full of pride.

'Wow,' she said, 'they're…they're perfect.'

'We like keeping them that way,' Keisuke said.

Kizuna was about to add something when the door which connected the garage to the house opened to reveal Ryoko who had obviously seen her father coming back and probably wanted to welcome him home. She seemed to change her mind when she spotted Kizuna and, with a huge smile on her face, she ran towards her and said:

'Kizuna-san! What a surprise!'

'Hey,' Keisuke complained.

'Ah,' Ryoko gasped looking a little guilty, 'welcome home Dad.'

'And?' the man said.

Ryoko let out a little sigh and walking towards her father, she went to give him a peck on his cheek.

'That's better,' he said then walked away from the three teenagers stepping into the house with a satisfied looking face.

'What are you doing here?' Ryoko asked Kizuna.

'I invited her for lunch,' Kyosuke replied instead.

'Really?' Ryoko asked him, without waiting for an answer she added, 'are you guys together now?'

'Ryoko!' Kyouske exclaimed slightly scandalised, 'that's none of your…'

'It's alright,' Kizuna intervened then, after exchanging a quick glance with him, she looked back at the younger girl and said, 'we got together this morning when I realised I was an idiot for making him wait.'

'That's brilliant!' Ryoko exclaimed happily, 'am I the first to know?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'but please, we'd want to…'

'Oh, I'll keep it a secret,' she said, 'at least for now.'

'Ryoko…' Kyosuke warned her.

'I'm joking,' she said smiling in a very unreassuringly way, 'anyway,' she continued hooking her arm with Kizuna's, 'come in, I'll show you around the house.'

Knowing that resistance against Ryoko was futile Kizuna just followed the girl inside the house while Kyosuke trailed after them. The trio went around the huge house while Ryoko explained to her the reason why the two houses were connected the way they were and how they had adapted the spaces so that the two families could have common areas while keeping a limited amount of privacy whenever needed.

'…and this,' Ryoko said getting to what Kizuna hoped was the last room of the house, 'it's Kyosuke's room.'

Predictably enough, it was perfectly tidy.

'I'll now go and help Mum with our lunch,' Ryoko announced, 'but we'll continue talking later, yes?'

'Of course,' Kizuna said.

'Great,' she said, 'this really is so great!'

The girl just skipped her way back to the staircase leaving Kyosuke and Kizuna standing outside his room.

'I'm sorry,' Kyosuke said, 'but you know my cousin…'

'It's fine,' she assured him, 'she's heaps of fun to be with.'

'Yeah,' he kind of agreed, 'sometimes she's just _too_ much fun but she means well, most of the time.'

'Listen,' she said sobering up a little, 'I hope you don't get me wrong but, I think it's best if we…'

'Don't worry,' he interrupted her, 'I won't tell anyone about us until you feel comfortable about it and that includes my family, well, except Ryoko, but she has fun keeping these kind of secrets so, we should be fine.'

'We will be,' she assured him.

The two spent a few minutes looking at each other and they were about to lose track of time when they saw Seisuke stepping out of his room. He looked like he'd just woken up which was perfectly plausible, considering the fact that he'd only got home at around three o'clock in the morning.

'Good morning,' Kyosuke said.

'Yeah…' he mumbled sleepily and somehow he managed to notice Kizuna, 'what are you doing here?'

'Kyosuke invited me over for lunch,' she explained.

'Ah,' the future doctor said, 'that's cool.'

With that, he just walked away scratching his hair messing it up so badly that Kizuna had trouble recognising it as the usually tidy and groomed locks Seisuke usually favoured. Kyosuke let out a soft chuckle and said:

'We're lucky.'

'What do you mean?' she asked him.

'He's not awake yet,' he explained, 'he won't be until he gets some coffee so we have some time to find a good excuse as to the reason why you're here for lunch. Otherwise, we'll have a full scale interrogation coming up, believe me, I know what I'm talking about.'

'I believe you,' Kizuna said, 'we could maybe say that I'm here to help you with the party you're organising to celebrate Akito's promotion to F3. I know that you pretty much have everything planned but, I don't know, it might help get the focus out of us for a bit.'

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke said, 'you're a genius.'

She just smiled at him.

By the time the two of them joined Seisuke, Ryoko and her parents in the large kitchen, the youngest of the Takahashi brothers was finally awake but thanks to Ryoko's intervention, they managed to convince him that Kizuna being there wasn't such a big deal. Keisuke snorted in disbelief but remained silent after getting a twin glare courtesy of his wife and daughter and thanks to that Kizuna truly enjoyed her first meal with most of the Takahashi family.

'Aren't you tired?' Kizuna asked Kyosuke when they helped Kyoko clearing the table.

'Not really,' he said.

'You haven't slept all night,' Kyoko pointed out, 'your mother told me that you didn't even come home.'

'I'm fine,' Kyosuke insisted, 'I need to train myself to pull all-nighters too.'

'That's true,' Kyoko reasoned, 'after all, if something goes wrong with the car during a race it'll need to be fixed no matter how long it takes. I've often seen pit crews working throughout the whole night in order to make sure the car was race-worthy the following day.'

'Not to mention that they also need to stay awake during the race,' Kizuna added.

'See?' Kyosuke said, 'I'm fine, I'll get some sleep later.'

After finishing in the kitchen, the three of them went to join everyone at the living room but even before Kizuna could take a seat, Ryoko took her by her hand and, practically kidnapping her, she made her follow her out of the room. She barely had the time to exchange a glance with Kyosuke who just shrugged a bit. The two girls were settled in Ryoko's room when she announced:

'Alright, you need my help.'

'What with?' Kizuna wondered.

'Well,' the girl said, 'I take you and my cousin will have your first date soon, right?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'we've decided to go to Tokyo this Saturday.'

'Right,' Ryoko said very solemnly, 'Tokyo…mmm…what are you going to wear?'

'Wear?' she asked looking a bit startled, 'I don't know…something comfortable, I guess.'

A disappointed look flashed across Ryoko's face, she then shook her head in disapproval and said:

'Kizuna-san, it's your first date with the guy you like, don't you want to look a little special?'

The older girl considered the issue for a bit then, biting her lower lip, she realised that Ryoko was right, not only she wanted to look a bit special, she wanted to make sure that Kyosuke would never forget their first date and, just then, she realised that Ryoko was also right with something else: she needed help, badly.

'Don't worry,' the younger girl smiled at her, 'we've got a full week, I'm sure we'll work something out.'

Kizuna didn't know whether she felt grateful, excited, terrified or a weird mix of the three. At any rate, she decided to settle for the first preparing herself for what she feared would be the makeover of the century.

_To be continued…_


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Seventeen_

Several hours later and without having spent more than a few minutes apart from the moment they had met in the morning, Kizuna was in her 350Z following the Takahashi brothers on their way to the car park at the bottom of the Akagi pass where they would meet up with the rest of the Golden Arrows and, now that she was alone, her brain finally registered it: Kyosuke was her boyfriend.

Kizuna could still not believe how fast everything seemed to have gone on that day, she'd woken up being a mess of feelings and now she probably was the happiest person on the planet. She was so over the moon that she had gladly accepted when Ryoko had proposed meeting up during the upcoming week to go on a shopping spree. Now, _that_ was a very clear sign that her sanity had definitely gone away on holidays.

Finding that she was too happy to care, she followed the two Mazda into the parking area in which she saw the four members of the former team led by Masato. The guy was standing in front of Yuta's dark green S17 which had the bonnet's cover lifted up and the two friends were checking something in it while Eiji and Kei talked. All four stopped all of that when they saw the yellow RZ-1.

'You guys are early,' Kyosuke said the instant he was out of his car. Kizuna heard that too and she could not help but to notice that his tone of voice sounded a little bit annoyed as if he simply hated not being there before everyone else. That made her smile while she heard Masato telling him that they didn't want to be late.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'we're not going to be long, are we?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'at what time are you supposed to meet with Kaori?'

'In half an hour,' the future doctor replied.

'We'll only need ten minutes,' Kyosuke assured him then, he checked his watch seeing that it was exactly quarter to nine and only three of the ten members were missing. He was going to pull his phone out so he could call Kazuya when he heard the distinct sound of three finely tuned engines and they soon saw the GD4 followed by Junya's S18 and Izawa's dark grey Vera.

Once the three cars were parked and their drivers had joined the group, Kyosuke faced his team and said:

'Last night, while we were at Mt Usui, I had a very interesting conversation with a couple of racers from Tochigi. They too have recently founded their team and hinted that they'd be willing to race us at their turf.'

'Where is that?' Kazuya asked.

'Irohazaka,' Kyosuke replied.

'I like that course,' Junya commented.

'I'm glad you do,' Kyosuke said, 'because I want you to take up the downhill there.'

'Consider it done,' Junya replied looking very pleased.

'Perfect,' Kyosuke said.

'Aniki,' Seisuke started, 'I'm sure that I speak on behalf of everybody here but, I seriously think you should do the uphill one. You've been talking for a long time about doing a race there so, I say you should do it.'

'I agree,' Masato said.

'Me too,' Izawa added.

Kyosuke exchanged a very brief look with Kizuna before he looked at everyone else.

'Alright,' he said, 'I'll race.'

Everyone on the team let out an excited cheer, even the usually mild Yuta seemed to understand the importance of the occasion: at long last, they were going to see their leader engaged in a proper battle. Kyosuke didn't even try to calm them down and, for once, he quietly observed them while he too smiled.

'Alright,' he repeated after they had subdued a bit, 'I'd like to get in touch with them as soon as possible so, if everyone agrees and you're all available, I'll set the date for the last Saturday of this month, we should aim to leave from here at around seven pm. How does that sound to you?'

'Sounds cool,' Kei said while the rest of the team nodded enthusiastically.

'Definitely,' Kizuna agreed and that made Kyosuke look at her again.

He looked away almost immediately fearing that if she looked at her for too long everybody would notice how he felt about her. Because of this, he closed his eyes for a second while he let his self-control make him regain his composure then, once he was sure his expression showed nothing, he looked up and said:

'Okay, now that we have that out of the way, some of you might remember that a while ago I promised Akito that if he made it into that F3 team we'd organise a race in our Motorsports Centre and, after giving it some thought and seeing how there will be a fair bit of people who will want to race, I've decided that we will do something which Seisuke here has called the Motorsports Triathlon.'

'The what?' Izawa asked frowning in confusion.

'Essentially,' Seisuke explained, 'we'll have some challenges involving cars and whoever scores more points, wins. After that, we've decided that we'll have a final race with the starting order decided by our scores.'

'That's a magnificent idea,' Eiji said.

'It is,' Masato agreed.

'I've already asked our uncle,' Kyosuke continued, 'and he said he'll close the Centre for the whole of Friday afternoon so we can have the whole place to ourselves. Naturally, the usual rules apply so we still need to be careful with the facilities and the cars so we won't do anything too crazy, okay?'

'Sure,' Junya said, 'what about the brat?'

'What about him?' Kyosuke asked refusing to take offence.

'Will he compete in this…'

'Triathlon,' Seisuke supplied.

'Whatever,' Junya said flatly, 'will he take part in it?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied, 'do you have any problem with that?'

'No,' Junya replied, 'I can't wait to see what he does outside his beloved karts.'

'What will we do?' Yuta asked oblivious to the challenging tone in Junya's voice.

'That's a surprise,' Seisuke replied, 'apparently, our uncle and Takumi-san will plan a few challenges for us.'

'Really?' Kazuya asked.

'That really is majorly cool,' an amazed Izawa said.

'It is,' Kyosuke agreed, 'I personally have no idea what they'll make us do but, knowing how crazy they are, I'm sure that it'll be quite epic so, gentlemen…and lady,' he quickly added, 'I think we'll have a lot of fun.'

'That sounds simply marvellous,' Eiji said with his usual theatrical flair.

'Alright,' Kyosuke continued, 'now, I'm going to go up and do some training, if any of you want to stay, feel free, if anyone needs to go, the rendezvous is at the Centre itself on Friday at five, don't be late, okay?'

Everyone on the team nodded and, for a few minutes, they all started talking about the kind of stuff the two legendary ex-racers would make them do, some of them coming up with the craziest theories but they all wished that the week ahead would pass as soon as possible so that it would be Friday already.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said at around nine o'clock, 'if you don't mind, I should get going.'

'That's fine,' he replied, 'I'll see you back home.'

'Sure,' the younger brother replied then, he walked back to his white RZ-1 and after waving at everyone, he climbed into it driving off just a few moments later. Kizuna checked her watch trying to decide between staying with the guys or the more sensible, less attractive option of going home and working on her papers.

'Do you have to leave?' she heard Kyosuke asking her.

'Well,' she started, 'to be honest, I'd love to stay but…I was supposed to do some homework today and…'

'Why didn't you tell me?' he asked her gently.

'I just…'

'Go home,' he said, 'college is very important and I'd hate to think that…er…the team is keeping you from your school work. We both know how crucial it is to study hard during the first year, don't we?'

'We do,' Kizuna agreed.

'Good,' Kyosuke said, 'we'll meet some other day to train, okay?'

'Alright,' Kizuna replied and, for a few interminable instants the two of them stared at each other wishing that there weren't so many pairs of eyes watching them so that they could kiss each other once again. Alas, even if a few of the Golden Arrows were already climbing into their cars, they simply could not do that and after offering Kyosuke a small smile, she made her way back to her Nissan 350Z.

'I'll see you at the campus,' she heard Kyosuke say.

That made her turn round and, nodding at him, she opened the door of her car. Just then, she noticed Izawa a few metres away looking at her inquisitively and, even though she and Kyosuke had decided not to tell anyone from the team, she somehow felt that she owed Izawa at least a bit of the honesty he'd always had with her. Because of this, she answered his unspoken question with a simple nod before getting into her car.

'What was that?' Eiji asked Izawa when Kizuna started driving away.

'What was what?' Izawa asked back looking the perfect picture of innocence then, refusing to be interrogated by the team's resident Mr Flashy, he too went to get in his car happy that, for one evening, he didn't have to go to one of his several part time jobs and could spend the evening training with the team.

Only when he got into his Vera and protected by the darkness, Izawa allowed himself to look as sad as he felt. He had always known that his chances with Kizuna were non existent and he'd spent several weeks preparing his heart for the inevitable moment when she and Kyosuke would finally get together. In spite of that, he still felt a wave of despair realising that Kizuna would definitely never be anything but a friend.

'That's enough,' he muttered trying to convince himself.

Noticing that several of his team mates' cars were already set in motion made Izawa turn on the engine of his Vera too and, a few instants later, with the powerful V6 engine roaring under his foot, he started feeling a little better. Yes, he had to give up on Kizuna forever but he still had his beloved car and now, he also had a rather large group of people, especially Masato, who were quickly becoming his best friends.

Four days later, on the morning of her nineteenth birthday, Kizuna woke up, not to her mother's phone call as she half-expected but to someone ringing the door's buzzer. The half-American girl dragged herself out of bed while she forced her brain to think of who could be at the door and, yawning, she finally remembered.

'Ryoko,' she muttered.

Rushing towards the entrance, she found it difficult to believe that she'd forgotten all about her "date" with the youngest of the Takahashi and she damned herself that the girl would now see her at her worst: with a puffy sleepy face and hair which looked quite suitable to host a family of sparrows.

'Hi,' Kizuna said while she opened the door.

'Happy birthday!' Ryoko replied smiling. That smile faltered a little when she saw Kizuna still in her pyjamas.

'I didn't forget,' Kizuna lied, 'I just…I…'

'It's alright,' Ryoko interrupted her while she started removing her red kitten heels.

'How did you get here?' Kizuna asked remembering that she was supposed to pick her up half an hour ago.

'Uncle Ryosuke had to go to the Arakawa Hospital,' Ryoko explained, 'and I just walked here from there.'

'Oh,' Kizuna gasped in surprise, 'so you Takahashi can actually _walk_ to go somewhere.'

'Not really,' Ryoko replied clearly not taking offence, 'I'm just the weirdo of the family.'

Kizuna found that answer even more surprising but, seeing how the younger girl was now padding towards the living room, she decided to forget about it and the instant the two girls were in the apartment's main room, Ryoko smiled at Kizuna and lifting her right hand, she showed her a small and pink shopping bag.

'What is this?' Kizuna asked.

'That,' Ryoko said, 'is your birthday present.'

'Ryoko,' she protested, 'I told you I didn't…'

'No protesting,' Ryoko interrupted her, 'you promised that today you would put yourself in my hands.'

Kizuna let out a heavy sigh and, trying to be a good girl, she took the bag from her and opening it, she extracted a small but very delicately wrapped parcel, setting aside the bag, she spent several moments trying to figure out how to get it open without destroying the shopping assistance's work of art. Giving up, she just snatched the ribbon off and tore the paper apart to reveal an even more beautiful black box.

'It's hand painted,' Ryoko explained.

'What is it for?' Kizuna asked.

The younger girl looked slightly confused by the question, then she replied:

'It's a make up box.'

'A what?' Kizuna asked looking at the pretty container again, it did look like the black lacquer it was made of had been hand painted but for the love of all that was holy, she couldn't figure out how that could possibly be a make up box. To her, it looked like something one saw in ancient Japanese art exhibitions.

'Let me,' Ryoko said taking it from her.

A mesmerised Kizuna observed while the younger girl flipped the lid open by pressing the smallest button Kizuna had ever seen to reveal a little tray containing what she guessed was blush and a couple of black sticks. Then, there were a pair of side little drawers with eye shadow and several shades of lip gloss.

'I asked the lady at the shop to replace the mascara with transparent one,' Ryoko explained, 'and as you can see the nuances are all very neutral, your face is exotic enough as it is so you don't need any flashy colours.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said trying to pretend she understood.

'Don't worry,' Ryoko assured her, 'I'll show you how to use this later, okay?'

'Perfect,' a relieved Kizuna said.

'Now,' Ryoko said, 'why don't you take a shower and get dressed so we can start going? Meanwhile, if you don't mind, I'll take a look at your closet so that I figure out what we have and what we'll need to buy.'

'Er…'

'I won't be judgemental,' she insisted, 'I promise.'

'I…'

'And don't worry if it's messy or something,' Ryoko said, 'if you saw the state of my closet, you'd freak out.'

Kizuna found that hard to believe but, humouring her, she led Ryoko to her room and, once there, she showed to the younger girl the reason why she was reluctant to show it to her: the thing was nearly empty.

'Oh,' Ryoko gasped.

'I had to pack light,' Kizuna tried to justify herself.

'I understand,' Ryoko reassured her, 'can I?' she then asked pointing at the few garments there.

'Of course,' Kizuna replied.

With the care and ability of someone who was used to browsing through clothes, Ryoko started checking what Kizuna had in the closet, frowning a little when she counted the pairs of jeans and baggy combat trousers the older girl seemed to favour. She visibly flinched when she saw the black skirt Kizuna considered the smartest thing she had but, seeing the dark red miniskirt put a pleased smile on Ryoko's face.

'This is nice,' she decided.

She then tried to get the hanger off the rack but, being just over a metre and a half tall, she couldn't reach that far up. Kizuna found that terribly cute but, somehow, she thought Ryoko wouldn't agree with her and, for this reason, she just stepped towards the closet and, very swiftly, Kizuna got the hanger off for Ryoko.

'This is the reason why I wish I was as tall as you are,' the younger girl complained while she carefully placed the skirt on top of the still unmade bed, 'it's so embarrassing having to ask people to get the stuff down for you because you can't get it yourself. I seriously think the supermarkets do it on purpose.'

'Well,' Kizuna countered, 'in the US it was fine because most girls are as tall as I am but, quite honestly, here in Japan I feel like a freak of nature and it makes me wish I was as short as you are.'

'Oh no,' Ryoko said very solemnly, 'you wouldn't want to be this short, believe me.'

'You're still growing up, aren't you?'

'Not really,' she replied sadly, 'I'll be sixteen in September and I haven't grown up a single centimetre in the past two and a half years. I think that I'm just going to be like this forever and what's even more depressing is that Akito seems to keep on growing all the time! To think that I used to be a little taller than he was.'

'Really?' Kizuna asked her.

'Yes,' Ryoko said, 'it happened when we were eight and for a few months I was two or three centimetres taller but then he had one of those growing spurts which made him shoot past me. It made me feel very upset because I thought that he was leaving me behind and for a while I remember I did stretching exercises.'

'You did what?'

'You know,' Ryoko explained, 'those exercises you see on TV. Since they called them "stretching" I thought they would make you grow faster so, for two whole months, I kept on doing them but I didn't grow at all.'

Kizuna tried very hard not to laugh.

'Anyway,' Ryoko said, 'enough about me, this is your day today so, let's see what you have in here,' she added checking the top drawer on a chest next to the closet. It was a good thing she opened that one first because the rest were empty. Kizuna observed while Ryoko started pulling out several t-shirts discarding all of them until she found a small jumper which, apparently, passed her very critical assessment.

'What do you think?' Kizuna asked her after they had a grand total of four garments on the bed.

'It's not as bad as I thought,' she answered honestly, 'that skirt is very cute and it has a lot of potential.'

'I could wear it to go to Tokyo,' Kizuna suggested.

'I guess you could,' Ryoko said not sounding too keen on the idea, 'but I think we should get you some more stuff, I'm thinking of more or less basic clothes that you can then combine with one another. Where do you keep your shoes?' she then asked looking around the room hoping she'd find a shoe rack somewhere.

'At the entrance,' Kizuna replied.

'The entrance?' Ryoko asked frowning a little, 'I only saw about six pairs of them.'

'That's as many as I own,' Kizuna confirmed.

'Oh,' Ryoko gasped then, looking like she was trying very hard not to show her disappointment, she said, 'shoes, you're going to need some more shoes, for instance, I didn't see any stilettos or anything with a…'

'I don't do heels,' Kizuna announced.

'What do you mean?' Ryoko asked her as though as she couldn't understand the sentence.

'I can't wear high heels,' Kizuna explained, 'I'm hopeless with them, I nearly killed myself when I had to wear them for prom, I ended up throwing them away and getting a pair of trainers from the athletics' team.'

This time Ryoko didn't even bother hiding her shocked expression.

'Alright,' she said, 'well…you're tall enough as it is so, I guess that's fine. Are ballerinas okay for you?'

'Yes, I'm okay with them,' Kizuna reassured her.

'Alright,' Ryoko repeated looking a little relieved, 'now, you should really go and take a shower, if you show me where to find it, I'll make us some coffee while you get dressed, this way we'll save time.'

Less than five minutes later, she was already under the shower while Ryoko busied herself in the kitchen and, while she washed her hair, she thought that maybe she should consider using some conditioner for it and, for the first time, she even put some of the perfume her mother had bought for her before she left.

By the time she stepped out of the bathroom, with her hair wrapped in a towel and a robe, Ryoko had made a couple of steamy cups of coffee and had even prepared some toasts with honey. She was already drinking from her cup when, seeing Kizuna rubbing her hair dry made her put the cup down and rush towards her.

'What are you doing?' she demanded.

'Er…drying my hair?' Kizuna replied.

'Not like this you're not,' Ryoko said taking the towel from her, 'sit down here,' she then ordered her.

Complying quickly, Kizuna wondered what she'd done that was so horribly wrong when Ryoko pulled a wooden comb from her purse then, very gently, she started trying to get Kizuna's long-ish hair untangled, making sure that she didn't break too many of them. Once that operation was completed, she asked:

'Where's your hairdryer?'

'In the bathroom,' Kizuna replied timidly.

Ryoko went out of the room coming back shortly afterwards. She then found a plug and, selecting the lowest temperature and the maximum air power, she started drying Kizuna's hair one strand of it at a time. She finished her work less than ten minutes later by using the cold function of the hairdryer.

'Alright,' she said, 'go and look at your hair now.'

Once again, she complied and, using the bathroom's mirror, she saw that her dark blonde hair, which usually was a fairly messy affair was now a sleek and glossy curtain falling all the way to her mid back.

'What did you do?' Kizuna asked her.

'You should never rub it with the towel,' Ryoko explained, 'and when you blow dry it, don't use the hottest temperature, that simply kills the fibre inside the hair and it makes it look all dull and lifeless. Also, use only wooden combs to untangle it, plastic or metal are not good because they get the hair full of static.'

'Really?' Kizuna asked amazed at the amount of stuff she was learning today.

'Yes,' Ryoko replied, 'now go and drink your coffee before it gets cold.'

Fifteen minutes later and with Kizuna wearing her best pair of jeans and a t-shirt Ryoko had approved of, they were ready to go. On their way out, Kizuna paid attention to the pretty spring dress Ryoko was wearing and she decided that she could never get away with wearing something as cute as that and look decent.

'Where are we going?' she asked the younger girl once they were both onboard the Nissan.

'Do you know where Utsunomiya is?' Ryoko asked her.

'Utsunomiya?' Kizuna asked back obviously not recognising the name, 'is that in Maebashi?'

'No,' Ryoko laughed softly, 'it's the capital city of Tochigi, the prefecture next to ours.'

'Why are we going there?' Kizuna asked.

'Because that's where the Bell Mall is,' Ryoko replied.

'The what?'

'The Bell Mall,' Ryoko repeated, 'it's the biggest shopping centre in the whole of North Kanto, if we can't find something we both like there, the only valid alternative will be Shibuya and, I don't know you but my parents would kill me if they found out I've gone to Tokyo without telling them first.'

'Fair enough,' Kizuna said.

With that, she turned the engine on and, a few moments later, the two girls were cruising down the lane on their way to Tochigi. Kizuna was happy enough to have a long drive, even more so because she found the perfect opportunity to get some more fashion and beauty tips from Ryoko who explained to her with infinite patience and using the sort of plain language that made Kizuna understand what she meant.

'Let me get this straight,' she said while they finally reached the road which led to the Bell Mall, 'if you're saying that I shouldn't change my style so much, why did we have to come all the way to Utsunomiya?'

'You see,' Ryoko started, 'my cousin likes you the way you are so, I don't think he'd appreciate it if you changed too radically so, instead of a full makeover, I think we should just polish things here and there and make sure that you have clothes for every occasion. He's a classic type so he'll probably take you out for dinner at some restaurant and you will definitely need to wear slightly more elegant clothes there.'

Faced with this flawless line of reasoning, Kizuna could only nod. She then adjusted the gears and started slowing down in preparation for the moment when they would join the long queue of cars at the entrance of the Bell Mall's car park. She could not believe that the place was so busy even on a Thursday morning.

'Say Ryoko,' she said when they finally had the car parked, 'how long can we be here for?'

'Not much,' she replied, 'like yourself I had the morning off but I promised I'd help the committee in charge of organising the school festival and I should be there after lunch so,' she said checking her watch, 'we only have a couple of hours.'

Kizuna reckoned that two hours of shopping was more than enough but soon, she realised just how wrong she was. In fact, the way Ryoko shopped was by being as meticulous as the work involved to tune a racing engine and by the end of the second hour, they had only covered what she considered the very essential.

'I feel like I'm carrying a survival kit,' Kizuna commented while they walked back to the car.

'You kind of are,' Ryoko said laughing softly, 'or we could think of it as a starter pack.'

'That's a much more terrifying prospect,' Kizuna joked but, if she wanted to be honest, she was rather pleased with her shopping: she had managed to get a lot of stuff that not only looked great and was fairly comfortable but what was even better, she hadn't spent anywhere near as much as she feared she would.

They were putting the bags inside the boot of the Nissan when the two girls heard a very familiar voice calling out Ryoko's name and that made Kizuna think that her day would somehow get ruined. Turning round at the same time, they both saw Kaori walking towards them accompanied by a middle aged woman.

'You're such a bad girl,' she said the instant she stood in front of them, 'why didn't you tell me you'd be here?' The way she spoke, made Kizuna feel that Kaori was purposely excluding her from the conversation.

'Sorry,' Ryoko said, 'I thought you'd be busy.'

'Well,' Kaori said, 'as a matter of fact, I am. I've decided to redecorate my room so I needed to get a new bedcover and a couple of other things. Look at this throw,' she added showing it to her, 'isn't it beautiful?'

'It is,' Ryoko replied, 'it's the same colour as the couch in my room.'

'You're right,' Kizuna commented carelessly.

'You've been to her room?' Kaori asked talking to her for the first time.

'Er…'

'Yes, she has,' Ryoko said without adding any further details. It was impossible not to notice the extreme jealousy in Kaori's expression and that made Kizuna think that she had spoken way too much. Thankfully, the middle aged woman, Kaori's mother, reminded her daughter that they were running late and had to go.

'See you tomorrow,' Kaori said dryly, once again talking exclusively to Ryoko who just nodded.

She then left leaving a very heavy atmosphere behind.

'I'm sorry,' Kizuna said.

'Don't worry,' Ryoko assured her, 'it's not your fault, it's Seisuke's.'

'What do you mean?' Kizuna asked before she could stop herself.

'I'm not too sure,' Ryoko said, 'I think Kaori has been pressing Seisuke so that he introduces her to Uncle Ryosuke and Aunt Akiko but I don't think he's ready for that sort of thing, you know, it's kind of a big deal.'

'Of course it is,' Kizuna commented trying not to think that she had already met Kyosuke's mother.

Ryoko didn't add anything to that and, instead, they two girls busied themselves loading the car as quickly as they could. Soon they were again on their way back to Maebashi and while Kizuna drove, she became aware that not only she'd given Kaori a good reason to break the fragile truce the two girls had established but, by the looks of it, things were also about to get very complicated for the poor Seisuke.

_To be continued…_


	19. Chapter Eighteen

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Eighteen_

The following day Kizuna arrived at the Takahashi Motorsports Centre with more than fifteen minutes to spare thinking that, since she was early, she'd be one of the first ones to arrive. She realised how wrong she was the instant she drove into the car park and she saw nine very familiar looking vehicles already parked there.

'Oh crap,' she said.

Leaving her Nissan next to Eiji's black Honda, she got out and glanced around the area to see if she spotted any of the owners of those cars. She did: they were all down at the pitlane of the full size track, together with Akito, Ryoko, Kaori and the two men who had organised the whole event, Keisuke and Takumi.

While she walked there, she saw that part of the car park had been set up with a series of traffic cones lined up near a pair of columns made up with old tyres. Not far from there she also saw a few mannequins standing in what seemed a random pattern. It made her wonder what all of those things were for but she guessed that she would find out as soon as she joined everybody else.

'Hello,' Kyosuke said seeing her. She noticed he did a very imperceptible double take.

'Hi,' Kizuna replied trying hard not to stare at him, 'I'm sorry for keeping everyone waiting.'

'No worries,' Keisuke said with a small grin, 'most of them just got here anyway.'

Kizuna just nodded while she shyly returned the smile. She then caught sight of Ryoko who, lifting her hand made an okay sign with it while she smiled approvingly at her choice of clothes: a black denim mini skirt and a pretty dark grey tight fit t-shirt with a black pattern on it, she was also wearing the new dark grey ballerinas which were surprisingly well suited for driving. Her hair was up on a ponytail and she even had some lip gloss on.

'Alright,' Keisuke said taking her out of her reverie, 'now that we're all here, let's get things started.'

He stopped talking looking at Takumi.

'Ah,' the man gasped looking like he'd been taken by surprise, 'er…well, we…' he interrupted himself as if he was trying to gather enough courage to talk in front of so many people, 'alright,' he started again, 'to begin with, we thought it'd be a good idea if you got a taste of what driving an F3 car feels like…'

'What?' Seisuke gasped, his eyes widening with surprise and anticipation, 'Takumi-san, are you serious?'

'Not so fast,' Keisuke intervened, 'unfortunately,' he said, 'the car is too small to fit anyone who is taller than one eighty five centimetres and even those who are shorter than that might find it a little cramped. So you three,' he said pointing at the two Takahashi brothers and Masato, 'won't be able to compete in this challenge.'

'That's too bad,' Masato said miserably.

'Yes,' Takumi replied, 'I'm sorry about that but it's safety first.'

'We understand,' Kyosuke assured him but Seisuke's expression said otherwise.

'Okay,' Takumi continued, 'what we want you to do is to take the car around the track for at least one lap. The challenge is to do it in the first go but since we know it'll be difficult to get the car moving at first, you will all have three chances to get it started, if you fail all three attempts, you'll get zero points.'

'The score of this first challenge,' Keisuke explained, 'will come from how close you get to the slowest lap set by Akito which, if I'm not mistaken, currently is one minute and forty two seconds. Fifty points will be given if you guys manage to get within a minute of that time, if any of you complete a full lap that is.'

Everyone stared at the older man possibly wondering just how hard that could be.

'Dad,' Akito said, 'am I supposed to take part in this too?'

'No,' Takumi replied, 'you'd have too big of an advantage if you did so Keisuke and I have decided that you too will start scoring in the second challenge, it's not like that's going to be a problem for you, is it?'

Akito understood the challenge in his father's question, for this reason he shook his head.

'I knew it wouldn't,' Takumi said, 'now, let's get going or it'll take forever.'

Very soon, everyone watched in awe as the two older men got the little red F3 car out of the pitbox where it was kept with both Kyosuke and Akito helping them complete the operation by getting the engine starter and the warming up system for the tyres. They had everything set up and ready within just a few minutes.

'Okay,' Keisuke said, 'I want to be sure you all understand that this is a very expensive machine, Akito will now give you a few pointers so I want all of you to pay the utmost attention to everything he'll say, ok?'

'Yes, sir,' all of them replied at the same time.

'Good,' Keisuke said, 'Akito…'

The boy looked very nervous all of a sudden, showing that he liked speaking in public as little as his own father did and to seek some of the reassurance he needed, he glanced at his two best friends. Kizuna noticed how both Takahashi brothers gave him an encouraging nod.

'Er…' he hesitated, 'well, I…' he stopped and cleared his throat, 'most of us here have driven karts, right?'

'Yes,' Junya replied with a surprisingly even tone.

'Cool,' Akito said, 'well, this isn't exactly like a kart but it does behave like one in the way you need to drive it in order to make it through the corners. As you can see from the seat, it's a lot lower than that of a kart so your point of view of the road is different, however, you'll find that the commands are more or less the same.'

'That should make things a little easier,' Kazuya said sounding unusually serious.

'Yep,' Akito replied, 'now, there are a few things I would like you to remember. First of all, the main difference between driving one of these and driving a normal car is that the reaction time needs to be heaps faster because the steering is a lot more sensitive to your touch than the one from a normal car.'

'What do you mean?' Kei inquired.

'Try and imagine this,' Kyosuke replied, 'if in your EVO you turn the wheel by this much to make it through the corner, in an F3 car you'll need to turn it a lot less than that but you'll also need to be faster or the car will just dart past the corner before you even have the time to think of turning the wheel, right Akito?'

'Exactly,' the young racer said, 'if that happens and you see that you're about to lose control of the car, there's very little you can do other than trying to get it into the lowest possible gear so that it slows down a bit and try and brace yourself as much you can so that if you do crash you won't hurt yourself that much.'

No one said anything to that but they all started looking a bit worried.

'Another thing,' Akito continued, 'for the brakes, the tyres and the engine to run smoothly you need to make sure they all reach the optimal operational temperature, if they're too cold, the brakes won't work well, the tyres won't have any grip and the engine will probably stall on you.'

'How do you get them warm?' Kazuya asked him.

'By going as fast as you can,' Akito replied looking at him.

'Essentially,' Keisuke said, 'the faster you make it go, the smoother it'll run.'

'What's the top speed?' Eiji asked him.

'This one gets up to two hundred and seventy kilometres an hour,' Keisuke replied, 'but I seriously doubt any of you will make it go that fast, in fact, I strongly advise you against even trying to go that fast.'

Everyone nodded solemnly and it was becoming very clear that they all were beginning to understand that what they were about to do was incredibly advanced stuff so they needed to be super serious about it.

'So,' Akito said, 'does any of you have any questions?'

'No,' Junya said simply.

'Okay,' Takumi said, 'you know where to find them so, you should go and get changed into your suits.'

Everyone started walking towards the changing rooms where they would find the standard suits used by the Centre, they were white, yellow and black, copying the design of the suits both Takumi and Keisuke had used while the Kirin Takahashi Racing Team competed in the GT series. They would also find integral helmets, their HANS devices, gloves, racing boots and fireproof balaclavas.

'Kyosuke,' Kizuna said the instant most of the Golden Arrows were gone.

'Yes?' he asked.

'I'm not sure if I should have a go, I mean, that car looks awfully difficult to drive and…'

'It's your call,' Kyosuke said, 'but if you don't feel confident, you shouldn't go anywhere near it.'

'I think I'll just watch then,' Kizuna decided and, judging by Kyosuke's relieved expression, she had just said what he wanted to hear. She then saw him looking around himself, as if he wanted to be sure they were out of everyone's hearing range then, he took a step towards her and, looking at her from head to toe, he said:

'You look amazing.'

'Thanks,' Kizuna replied feeling herself blush, 'it's thanks to your cousin, she's quite the fashion guru.'

'Yes,' Kyosuke agreed with a soft smile, 'I should thank her for the efforts later, you…you're…'

She never knew what he thought she was because, right at that moment, Seisuke and Masato approached them both looking slightly disgruntled that they weren't going to be able to have a go with the F3 car. Kizuna fought the urge to glare at them while Kyosuke took a couple of steps away looking a bit angry too.

'Say Kizuna,' Seisuke said, 'are you going to take part in this challenge?'

'No,' she replied surprising herself with how steady she sounded, 'it's too dangerous.'

'It is,' Masato agreed, 'which is why I'd love to have a go, it's too bad we're too big for the car.'

'You know,' Seisuke added, 'I think it's the first time I hate being tall.'

'Lucky you,' Kizuna commented lightly.

Seisuke was going to reply when they saw Akito, Ryoko and Kaori walking towards them too. Since none of them would take part on the challenge, Ryoko proposed to go and sit at one of the grandstands so that they could watch the whole thing from there. Kyosuke agreed seeing that the two older men would supervise everything from the pitlane and were more than capable of keeping the situation under control without him.

'I can't wait to see how everyone does,' Akito commented.

'You're not going to laugh at them, are you?' Seisuke teased him.

'Of course not,' Akito replied frowning a little, 'you know I wouldn't do that!'

'I know,' Seisuke laughed, 'I was just winding you up.'

'You must be worried,' Masato commented glanced at Akito who looked a little confused, 'it's your training car and as Keisuke said, it's very expensive, it will be a massive disaster if they damage it, won't be?'

'Yes,' Akito replied seriously, 'but I'm sure they'll do great.'

A few minutes later, they watched as a group of six racing suit clad guys made their way towards the pitlane there, they saw as Junya put his helmet connecting it to the HANS device he already had on then, he climbed into the little F3 car, lowering himself into the cockpit while both Takumi and Keisuke helped him adjusting the seatbelts and clipping the steering wheel on.

'I knew he'd be the first to have a go,' Seisuke commented to no one in particular.

Everyone there watched the two older men connect the engine starter to the car and as soon as it came on, making a tremendous noise that made them cover their ears with their hands, they also removed the covers which kept the tyres warm. Only then, the two men stepped away from the car waiting for Junya to move it. The guy lowered the visor and, engaging the clutch, he tried inserting the first gear using the lever under the steering wheel, he then tried to increase the pressure on the throttle hoping the engine wouldn't stall.

It did.

'It's alright,' Akito hurried to say seeing everyone's shocked faces, 'the first time it's always a little hard.'

Keisuke went to connect the engine starter and, turning it on, he walked to Junya and shouted:

'Rev it up a bit before you engage the clutch.'

Junya complied feeling mortified that he'd made the car stall in his first attempt. Then, taking a deep breath, he remembered what Akito had said about needing to be delicate. He repeated the operation once again making sure he treated all the commands as if they were made of crystal and, pressing the throttle just a hair, he managed to make the car move forward for a good three and a half metres. Then it stopped again.

'For fuck's sake,' the guy complained.

This was just too difficult and, for the third time, he had to suffer the humiliation of having Keisuke restart the engine. This time the older man didn't even bother to hide an amused looking smirk and that made Junya feel so furious at himself that it took him a few seconds to calm down enough to try again.

'This is the last attempt,' Masato commented.

They all nodded and, down below, they saw Kei looking like he was getting ready to take over but, just as he was about to grab his helmet, Junya finally managed to get the car out of the pitlane and onto the proper track. He wasn't going incredibly fast but at least the engine was still running even after changing gears.

'That's not bad, is it?' Kyosuke asked Akito.

'Nope,' the younger guy replied keeping his eyes on the little vehicle.

Meanwhile, Junya quickly found that he needed every bit of his concentration to do something as simple as changing the gears and keeping the car in a straight line. Thinking of the times he'd seen Akito driving this car and how stupidly easy the kid made it look made him feel incredibly frustrated and get unreasonably mad at the brat, the car and himself for not being able to drive it with the same level of competency.

When the first corner came, things became even more complicated and he then realised that Akito hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said that one needed to be extra careful with the steering. Junya saw that he after simply touching the wheel towards the right, the whole car was immediately sent in that direction as if the tyres had a mind of their own. He was beginning to get frankly scared and he wasn't even pushing it.

Somehow managing to clear the corner, he decided to try and make it go faster hoping that if he did, the car would start being a little more cooperative and, as he covered the distance to the following turn, he saw that the digital counter marked one hundred and forty kilometres an hour. He pressed the tiny accelerator making it go up to one hundred and fifty then one hundred and fifty five, then at the corner, he braked, lowered the gear and the speed dropped to just over seventy kilometres per hour.

He then felt the Gs pushing them down in the seat in such an uncomfortable way that he had trouble turning around the left-hander and, just then, he figured out the reason why the steering had to be so sensitive: with the high speed and with his own body being pushed to its limits, if the steering were any harder, it would probably be impossible for him to have any control of the car.

Junya was already exhausted and he'd just covered a couple of corners.

Despite that, Junya managed to complete the lap, clocking it at two minutes and thirty seven seconds but, after driving it back to the pitlane, he found that getting out of the car was a lot more difficult than he'd expected: his arms were sore and his legs were so shaky that he needed a couple of attempts in order to get out of the car. He then waited for a short while before he trusted himself enough to remove his helmet.

'Are you alright?' Takumi asked him helping him get rid of the HANS device.

'Yeah,' Junya replied tiredly.

'Here,' Keisuke said giving him a small white towel, 'you did rather well, you know?'

'Did I?' Junya asked looking fairly surprised.

'Yes,' the Centre's owner replied, 'considering this is your first time ever, it's nothing short of a miracle that you managed to complete the lap, let alone doing it in under three minutes. I'm honestly impressed.'

'Thank you, sir,' Junya said.

Feeling a little smug, he walked back to where the other five guys were. Kei glanced at him while he started getting ready to have his go. Junya sat down onto the floor next to his cousin who stared at him in awe.

'Well done,' Kazuya said.

'You know,' Junya confessed quietly, 'that was possibly the hardest thing I've done in my whole life.'

'Really?' Kazuya asked and, seeing Junya's nod, he added, 'well, maybe now you'll be nicer to Akito.'

'No,' Junya replied, 'he's still a brat and, with a normal car, I can still beat the crap out of him anytime.'

Kazuya glanced quickly at the opposite side of the pitlane, feeling relieved that Akito's father hadn't heard his cousin highly offensive remark. He then looked at Junya, briefly considering whether there was any point to try and make him see reason but knowing his cousin as well as he did, he decided that Junya would not change his mind about Akito quite so easily. For this reason, he focused his attention to see how Kei fared.

Surprisingly and to Junya's annoyance, Kei did a lot better than him and in his very first attempt, he managed to get the F3 car out of the pitlane and onto the track. Kazuya was about to tease his cousin about it when, the instant Kei reached the first corner, he lost control of the car spinning it out of the tarmac.

'Oh crap,' they heard Keisuke say then, without having to say anything to him, Takumi rushed to get into the towing truck so that they could go and recover the car and its driver. Kei was simply furious with himself and only someone as crazy as Eiji was suicidal enough to tease him about it.

'That was a beautiful spin,' he told Kei.

'Piss off,' the Mitsubishi driver barked before he plunged down on the ground.

They then waited till the car was deemed ready then, Eiji got his helmet and glancing at Kei, he smiled at him and told him to watch and learn. Kei was about to get up to probably go and kill him when Kazuya said:

'Let's see how he does it.'

It turned out that Eiji didn't even get the car into motion but, instead of being ashamed, he just shrugged.

'That car is too temperamental,' he justified himself, 'there's no way we'd agree.'

Everyone there exchanged an incredulous look while they wondered if there was anything which would upset Eiji's ego. They doubted it, considering that the guy seemed to have a skin as thick as an elephant's.

In the end, Junya was the only one who managed to complete the lap. Kazuya did fairly well but he stalled the car while trying to change gears at the mid-point of the course, Izawa was only able to make the car roll down the pitlane before the engine stalled on him too and Yuta decided that this was too difficult for him and that he preferred to sit out.

'Are you sure?' Takumi asked him.

'Yeah,' Yuta replied, 'if Kei couldn't do it, there's no way I'll be able to.'

'Alright,' Keisuke said, 'we'll just wrap this up so we can move on to the next challenge,' he then waited for the people at the grandstand to rejoin them to continue, 'the total score is zero points for everyone except you,' he said pointing at Junya, 'you get fifty points for being the only one who completed his lap.'

Junya smiled a little.

'Now,' Takumi said, 'for the next challenge, you all will need to go and get your own cars.'

While they complied, the two older men pushed the F3 car back into the pitbox and, very soon, all ten cars were lined up against the pitlane's wall, with Kyosuke's RZ-1 in front of all of them. Kizuna had decided to remain between Kei's Mitsubishi and Junya's Nissan, quite a few cars behind. Akito closed the line in one of the Centre's silver Toyota Vera. The car was as finely tuned as the ones driven by Izawa and Masato and probably was equally fast but, unlike theirs, this one didn't have any of the official TRD's aerodynamic parts.

'We'll compete in equal grounds,' Masato said looking at both Izawa and Akito.

'Yep,' the boy said smiling happily. At long last, he was going to be able to race with the Golden Arrows!

'Alright,' Keisuke said asking for everyone's attention, 'this is the second challenge,' he explained pointing at the circuit's main straight, 'what you need to do is this: taking your car to the very start of the straight, you will all drive it up to a hundred kilometres an hour then, you'll need to brake in the shortest possible distance. Points will be given according to how fast everyone gets their cars to one hundred but points will be taken for any extra metre it takes for you to get it to a complete stop.'

'What's our reference?' Kyosuke asked his uncle.

'I'll take care of that,' Takumi announced. He then walked towards another one of the Centre's Vera and, climbing into it he drove it out of the pitlane and to the very edge of the main straight. There, they all watched eagerly as the legendary ex-racer revved the engine up before launching it to what looked like an impossibly fast dash. Less than a handful of seconds later, they saw him braking hard, coming to a full stop just in front of them, almost as if he'd done it on purpose.

'Wow,' was the unanimous awed gasp.

'Your father's scary,' Izawa commented staring at Akito wide-eyed.

'I know,' the kid replied smiling proudly while he observed his father driving the Vera back into the pitlane, climbing out of it as if he'd just come back from the supermarket. He walked towards them and said:

'Any questions?'

Eleven heads shook at the same time.

'Alright,' Keisuke said, 'I take you'll go first,' he added looking at the oldest of his two nephews.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied and, climbing into his car, he proceeded to do what Takumi had just done. He knew that his car's engine was powerful enough to get it to one hundred fairly quickly but it was braking which was the tricky part. If he didn't step on the pedal firmly enough, the car would skid and he would lose points. He revved the engine up and, checking that the traction control was properly calibrated, he took off.

With an eye on the speedometer and another one on the track, Kyosuke saw the digital needle raise from naught to thirty, then fifty five, then seventy, eighty, ninety and at one hundred exactly, Kyosuke slammed the brakes, making sure he kept the steering wheel straight by grasping it so firmly his knuckles went white.

'Phew,' he sighed when, looking at his right side, he saw that he had stopped just a few metres further ahead than Akito's father. Not bad at all, Kyosuke thought feeling rather pleased with himself. While he drove back into the pitlane, he saw his brother's RZ-1 already making his way to the start of the straight.

'How did I do?' Kyosuke asked his uncle.

'It was good,' the man replied, 'there's room for improvement though.'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied without feeling offended then, something occurred to him, 'Uncle Keisuke?'

'Yes?'

'I wonder,' Kyosuke said, 'are these challenges you've set up for us…maybe…some sort of training?'

He watched while the two older men exchanged a look and then, his uncle looked at him proudly:

'You're indeed your father's son.'

Kyosuke's smile widened hearing that then, the two of them watched while Seisuke completed his dash, stopping further away from the point set by Takumi. He'd still done reasonably well and soon every one of the members of the Golden Arrows had their go with various degrees of success. Akito was the last one.

'He's going for it,' Seisuke said sounding excited.

They all held their breath, especially Ryoko, while they watched the fifteen year old racer revving the engine of his Vera, holding the accelerator and the brake pedals for a little longer than everyone else, including his own father. Then, being careful not to lose any power, he launched the Toyota into a neck-breaking dash and the millisecond it reached the required speed, he slammed the brakes halting the car just a few centimetres past the spot where his father had stopped.

'With all due respect,' Seisuke said to Takumi, 'your son is nuts.'

The older man just shrugged while he watched Akito driving back into the pitlane. Everyone from the Golden Arrows sported more or less incredulous expressions, excepting Junya who looked rather upset that the brat had managed to beat everyone. Kazuya observed his cousin while he started feeling the usual competitive rush he got every time he saw someone performing infinitely better than anything he could do.

'We still have a few challenges left,' he commented, almost as if he was talking to himself.

'I know,' Junya replied nevertheless, 'I'll beat him during the race, you'll see.'

He walked away and Kazuya glanced at him before looking at Akito, then, he muttered:

'Not if I beat him first.'

With the challenge complete, Junya still topped the chart with sixty five points. Akito was already in second place having scored forty five points since he hadn't quite managed to nail the point where his father had stopped. In third place was Kyosuke with thirty five points and Seisuke was tied with Kazuya in fourth. The last one was Eiji but he was having too much fun to care.

They all moved out of the pitlane and onto the main parking area where Keisuke ordered all of them to line up their cars near to the mannequins Kizuna had seen when driving into the Centre. Before any of them could wonder what they had to do there, Takumi-san explained that, one at a time, they had to drive towards them and drifting around the mannequins, they had to try and get the front bumper of their cars as close as possible to them without tumbling them over.

'That's going to be fun,' Masato commented happily.

Seisuke was going to agree when he saw his girlfriend leaving Ryoko's side and walking towards him with a resolute expression on her face, the sort which he knew meant she wasn't happy about something. Again, she was in the place she hated the most in the world so he couldn't expect her to be ecstatic about it.

'Hey,' he said as cheerfully as possible noticing how Masato was discreetly leaving them alone, 'having fun?'

'You're kidding, right?' Kaori asked him.

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied flatly.

'Look,' Kaori said, 'you know I'm only here because it's impossible to say no to your cousin and because you promised me that we'll go out somewhere the minute this is over so, since I don't want to start an argument, I just want to ask you something.'

'Alright,' Seisuke said as patiently as possible.

'When were you going to tell me that the tomboy had been to your place?'

'Kaori…'

'Because, I just don't understand,' she continued, 'she's just showed up here coming from goodness knows where and not only your brother lets her be in the team but she's practically kidnapped your cousin and she's even been to your place when I, your girlfriend, have never set a foot in it.'

'Kaori…'

'And look at what she's wearing,' Kaori continued, 'I mean, what is she trying to…'

'Stop it,' Seisuke nearly barked, 'I'm not going to say it again: do not be rude to Kizuna.'

'But…'

'And regarding the fact that she's been invited to our home and you haven't, the answer is simple. Your situation and hers are very different, she's our friend and as such, she's welcome to come to our home whenever she wants, you, on the other hand, are my girlfriend and…'

'Precisely,' Kaori interrupted him, 'I should…'

'…and the day I bring you home,' Seisuke continued, 'is to introduce you to my parents as my fiancée,' her face lit up with happiness, 'but,' he added, 'that that is not going to happen at least until I become a doctor, you know that, don't you?'

Kaori forced herself to nod.

'Good girl,' Seisuke said smiling again then, seeing that it was his brother's turn, he focused his attention on the yellow RZ-1. Because of this, he failed to see the calculating look which appeared on Kaori's livid face.

_To be continued…_


	20. Chapter Nineteen

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Nineteen_

After watching every one of his team mates complete their drift in a more or less perfect way, Yuta felt rather pressured to make sure he didn't let Masato down so, sitting behind the steering wheel of his S17, he took a deep breath while the car started picking up the speed it needed to perform a drift. He then made the car go into a slight oversteer and was about to engage the parking brake when his Silvia escaped his control.

'Oops,' Masato muttered seeing as Yuta's car crashed nose first onto the poor mannequins sending one of them flying.

'Yeah,' Junya said sarcastically, 'big oops.'

Yuta somehow managed to stop the car before it would cause any further damage and, climbing out of it, he stared in horror at the mannequin, a male one, that had lost its head and one of its arms. He was so shocked by the sight that he failed to notice that Kazuya and Seisuke were running towards him. Kazuya knelt next to the broken mannequin after picking its head up and looking at Seisuke faked an urgent tone while he said:

'Doctor Takahashi, we need to save him!'

Seisuke joined the fun by taking pretending to mend the mannequin then he started performing a CPR on it stopping only after a few seconds when he got very serious and started shaking his head, then, looking at Kazuya feigning the deepest of sorrows, he said:

'I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do: he's dead.'

Kazuya pretended to wipe a tear and patting the headless mannequin, he said:

'You died with honour.'

By the end of the gag, everyone had cracked up laughing and even Keisuke and Takumi had the same amused expressions on their faces. The only one who wasn't laughing was Kaori who said:

'They're so childish.'

'Come on,' Ryoko said still laughing, 'they're funny.'

'If you say so,' Kaori said clearly not sharing her opinion.

Ryoko chose not to say anything also because, after getting Yuta's car out of the way and putting the surviving mannequins back in place, Akito got onboard the Vera so that he too could complete the challenge. Everyone sobered up while they saw the Toyota speeding up and, just as everyone expected, he brushed past the mannequins in what was a perfect drift.

'Now,' Kazuya said passing his arm around Yuta, 'that is how you do it.'

'Yep,' the guy replied nodding.

'Hey,' Kei said being uncharacteristically sympathetic, 'don't beat yourself down too much, okay?'

Yuta shook his head looking very happy that, for once, Kei wasn't going to pick on him.

Kyosuke observed the exchange and, watching the friendly way the rest of the team were interacting with one another, he decided that this day was going to be much more than just a celebration for Akito's promotion to F3. To him, it was the chance the team needed to go from being a random bunch of people to what he wanted them to be: a group of friends.

Kyosuke came out from his reverie when Keisuke and Takumi started explaining the next challenge: using the line of cones they all had noticed earlier, they would have to drive around them in a slalom then, at the end of the line, they would have to turn around the last cone as fast as they could and drive back down. To make up for his mistake, Yuta asked if he could be the first one to have a go.

'Sure,' Kyosuke said, 'go ahead.'

The guy got inside his dark green Silvia and, driving towards the first cone, he started negotiating his way around all fifteen of them then, turning in a nearly perfect way, he went back down completing the course in just under a minute and a half. The guy climbed out of the car looking rather impressed with himself.

'Well done,' Masato said.

'Yep,' Kazuya agreed being fair.

'This time,' Eiji added, 'you didn't kill any of the cones.'

Everyone, including Yuta, looked at him with more or less equally deadpan expressions on their faces. Eiji, completely oblivious to the fact that his joke had epically failed, just smiled while he started making his way to his black Honda, climbing into it and getting it into motion before anyone could react. He too completed the exercise in around one and a half minutes which turned out to be pretty much the standard.

Then it was Kyosuke's turn.

The Golden Arrows leader made the yellow RZ-1 go around the cones at such high speed that he managed to clock his time to just over a minute making everyone do a double-take. A very impressed Akito was the first one to speak to him when Kyosuke climbed out of his car.

'Just now,' he said, 'you were driving a little seriously, weren't you?'

Kyouske just smiled at him a bit.

'Alright,' Akito said, 'I believe it's my turn now.'

The young racer walked to the silver Vera while Kyosuke joined the rest of his team. From there, he watched while Akito drove the short distance between his parking space and the first cone where his father was waiting for him with the stopwatch ready. At Takumi's signal, Akito launched his car forward, slaloming around the cones even faster than Kyosuke, completing his run in less than a minute.

'Well done Aniki,' Seisuke commented.

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked sounding a little too innocent.

Seisuke rolled his eyes at him and went to his car so that he could have his go too while he thought that it was almost funny how much his older brother seemed to love pushing Akito to his limits so that he would keep on improving. As if the kid needed any encouragement to drive like the madman he was, Seisuke thought sarcastically while he positioned his car right in front of the first cone.

'Go!' Takumi shouted.

The future doctor pushed his car to its limits while he went around each of the cones. He knew that he was going slower than both his brother and Akito but he didn't care too much and soon he started having fun seeing how much he could let the rear of the car go before he had to get it in the other direction and, at the end of the line, he grinned while he made the car turn round so that he could start all over again and even though his time wasn't as spectacular as Akito's, he still managed to get within a couple of seconds of Kyosuke's which made it possible for him to get in third place forcing Junya to the fourth place and for Seisuke watching the scowl on the older guy's face was nearly as much fun as the challenge itself.

'What are we going to do now?' Masato asked.

'This,' Takumi replied pointing at the two columns of tyres.

Everyone stared at them trying to figure out what they were supposed to do then, they saw as Keisuke climbed behind the wheel of the Toyota Akito was using and, driving towards the first pile at an absurdly high speed, he started drifting around it once, twice and three times in a perfect doughnut shape before he let the car drift towards the other column where he did another three full turns around it.

'Eh?' Yuta gasped.

'Excuse me,' Izawa said talking to Akito's father, 'are we supposed to do that?'

'Yes,' Takumi replied obviously failing to see what the problem was.

'Right,' Izawa replied sounding very sceptical.

'We'll do our best,' Kyosuke promised.

That was by far the most difficult exercise of them all but as it turned out, it was also going to be the last one since it was getting late and they still had to do a twenty lap long race. Kyosuke volunteered to go first hoping that he would manage to at least complete a couple of doughnuts when he lost control of his car just as he was going around the column for the second time. Everyone felt their jaw drop at the same time.

'It's official…' an astonished Kazuya announced.

'…we're screwed,' Masato finished for him.

'Dad,' Akito complained, 'that's impossible for us.'

'Is it?' Takumi asked his son.

'Duh,' Akito replied sarcastically, 'there's no way we can do that: we're still too green for that kind of stunt.'

'I agree that you all still have a long way to go,' Takumi said flatly, 'but you can still try, can't you?'

'I guess,' Akito replied not sounding too sure. Nevertheless, he still went to the car with the others feeling only too happy to let him go ahead of them. Kyosuke climbed out of his car right at the same time as Akito got into the Vera. He didn't even bother joining the rest of the team watching as Akito drove towards the first column as fast as he could then, sending the car into a drift, the young racer completed the first doughnut and even the second. To his credit, he only lost control of his car when, half way through the third turn, he tried to make the car face the right way so that he could skid to the other column.

'Er…' Yuta said lifting his hand up, 'I think I'm going to pass.'

'Me too,' Izawa agreed.

'I want to have a go,' Junya decided

'I knew you would,' Kazuya said, 'but I'm with them,' he added indicating both Yuta and Izawa.

'What?' Junya asked him sounding incredulous, 'you're going to pass too?'

'Of course,' Kazuya replied, 'there's no way I can do that just yet.'

'Suit yourself,' Junya said while he made his way to his car and, despite doing his best, he only managed to complete one full turn around the column before he too lost control of his car. After him, only Seisuke, Kei and Masato were brave enough to try and since all three scored a spectacular fail, Keisuke decided that the challenge was a tad too hard and told them that they would need to get heaps more practice.

'We will,' a slightly subdued looking Kyosuke promised.

'That was a difficult manoeuvre,' his uncle said then, lowering his tone a bit, he added, 'even for me.'

Kyosuke felt his eyes widen in shock.

'Anyway,' the older man said speaking up, 'I'm now going to announce the results of the challenges.'

The whole team gathered around him with only Takumi, Ryoko and Kaori standing a little further back.

'With a grand total of one hundred and sixty five points,' Keisuke said, 'Fujiwara Akito.'

'As usual,' Seisuke said flatly, 'let me guess who's second...'

'Shimano Junya,' Keisuke replied startling everyone, 'one hundred and fifty five points; Kyosuke, you're third with one hundred and fifty points, then it's you,' he said looking at Seisuke, 'with one hundred and thirty five points and tied in fifth place we have Kameyama Kazuya and Ikeda Masato with one hundred and thirty points. Kizuna-chan is tied with Kitamura Kei in seventh place with one hundred and twenty points and after that we have Izawa Daichi and Watanabe Eiji with one hundred and fifteen and one hundred and ten points. You're last,' he said pointing at the poor Yuta, 'since you managed to get just one hundred points.'

'Sorry everyone,' the guy said letting his head hang in shame.

'It's okay,' Kyosuke said reassuringly, 'I think that today we've all learned a lot and now that we know where we need to improve, I'm sure we'll all work harder than ever to make sure that we overcome our limits.'

'That's what I wanted to hear,' Keisuke said while Takumi also nodded approvingly.

Kyosuke smiled a little but he got serious again realising that they still had one more challenge ahead. He was going to order everyone to go and climb into their cars when, without having to open his mouth to speak, he saw the whole team plus Akito making their way towards their rides. That made him shake his head once before he too went to get into his RZ-1.

As they had agreed, the starting order of the race would follow the classification obtained up to that moment, which meant that Akito was going to start the race ahead of everyone else. Kyosuke damned himself for not having got enough points to be next to him but he hoped that he would manage to overtake Junya at the start so that he and Akito could have the kind of fair fight that he'd been waiting for.

Meanwhile everyone else placed their cars in position, Junya glanced ahead of him at the silver Vera. He could not believe that the kid had managed to beat him during the challenges in spite of not having got any points in the first of them. He also found it hard to believe that Kyosuke was behind him but, again, the leader hadn't scored any points in the first exercise either.

'All the better,' Junya muttered, a smirk appearing on his face.

He knew exactly what he had to do to get past Akito. He knew this course nearly as well as the brat but, unlike him, he was driving his own car, the one which had made him win several races as well as having allowed him to join the Golden Arrows as their downhill ace. In short: there was no way he'd lose to him.

From the grandstand, Ryoko and Takumi waited for the start of the race while a bored Kaori played with her mobile phone obviously not caring about the fact that her boyfriend was about to start a race. Seeing that made Takumi exchange a look with his future daughter-in-law who just shrugged. The man returned his attention to the track so that he could see if his son managed to keep the pole position.

At exactly half past six, Keisuke signalled for everyone to start the formation lap. Even if it was an informal race, they would still follow the normal pre-race protocol and soon, Akito led the eleven cars around the circuit, using up the chance to check the conditions of both the track and the car as well as warming up the tyres in preparation for the extra effort he would now put them through.

Taking the Vera down the main straight, he then turned around the first corner of the track, a huge left-hand turn he knew his father had helped design by copying one of the infamous hairpins in Akina. He then cruised up a short straight that led to a much smaller left-hand hairpin and, from there, Akito reached what was his favourite part of the track: a long series of more or less fast corners that would take him to a wide parabolic that went back to the main straight where the start/finish line was.

'Alright,' Akito said talking to the steering wheel, 'let's do this.'

While he waited for everyone to line up behind him, Akito let himself imagine that he was two and a half years older and that he really was a member of the Golden Arrows. He felt himself shivering with excitement knowing that, for the first time ever, he was going to race with proper cars with every single one of them, not just Kyosuke and Seisuke. He simply couldn't wait till the overhead lights turned green.

A few moments later his wish was granted.

Flooring the accelerator, Akito took off as fast as the Vera's V6 could take him, holding firmly onto his first position all the way to the hairpin there, he felt a huge thump and before he could do anything to prevent it, he felt the car's tyres losing traction, sending him flying onto the grass which covered that part of the track.

'That's not legal!' Ryoko shouted furiously getting up from her seat.

'It is,' Takumi countered calmly.

'But…'

'It's not a very orthodox thing to do,' her father added joining them at the grandstand, 'considering that this is only a friendly race but it's still a legal manoeuvre and Akito knows it so, don't worry about it.'

Meanwhile, Akito had finally managed to get the car back onto the tarmac but by the time he'd done so, he was driving behind Masato's Vera. He was simply furious with Junya less than friendly move but again, he knew very well that the older guy's tactics weren't always the cleanest and, at any rate, he still had nineteen laps to try and get back at him so, taking a few calming breaths while he followed Masato around the smaller hairpin, he decided to wait until they got to his favourite section to overtake him.

A few cars in front of him, Junya had a very short lived lead for, Kyosuke, after witnessing the moment when Akito had been pushed out of the track, had very quickly reached Junya and just as they exited the first hairpin, using the RZ-1 more powerful engine, Kyosuke overtook Junya with one swift and clean move.

'That'll teach him!' Ryoko said.

Keisuke observed his daughter trying not to laugh out loud.

With Kyosuke on the lead, a startled Junya soon found himself attacked by Seisuke who had also managed to catch up with him and while Seisuke's attacking skills weren't particularly strong, the future doctor's driving was every bit as aggressive as Akito's so, Junya was forced to cover the mid section of the circuit with an eye on the yellow RZ-1 and another one on the white one.

Somewhere else, Kizuna had been overtaken by Kei who hadn't quite managed to leave her behind. For this reason, she glued herself to the rear bumper of the white ten year old Mitsubishi, hoping that she'd have the chance to get back onto her seventh place also because she simply hated the way Izawa seemed to be keeping his distance, clearly refusing to attack her.

'Come on Z,' she said trying to encourage her car.

It wasn't until she and Kei got to the main straight that she saw an opening. Moving her hand to the shifter, she changed gears while veering towards the right then, opening the throttle, she pushed her car levelling it with Kei's and before the guy had the time to react, Kizuna crossed right in front of him.

'YES!' she shouted happily.

She was entering the hairpin when, right ahead of her, she saw Masato's red Vera following Akito's silver one which was already on pursue of Kazuya's GD4. She knew that if Kei had been a difficult rival, Masato was going to be an even more difficult one but, the fact that Akito was just a car away gave Kizuna a very powerful incentive to try and get past the first of the two Vera. Unfortunately for Kizuna, Akito didn't have any intentions of staying behind Kazuya for too long and, the moment they got to the second hairpin, he pushed his way into the inside of the corner, making Kazuya miss the ideal entry point. Despite that fact Kazuya resisted with all his might and, pushing his Honda to its limits, he held onto his fourth place. For now.

'So much for a friendly race, huh?' Takumi commented to Keisuke.

'Yeah,' the older guy replied, 'I think they're worse than we were.'

'I think so too,' Takumi replied with a smirk.

'Dad,' Ryoko said, 'who do you think will win?'

'No idea,' the man replied, 'I would say Kyosuke but, to be honest, the way they're all driving makes it difficult to see. It's only been five laps and so much has already happened. We'll just have to wait and see.'

'Who do you want to win?' Takumi asked her.

'That's obvious, isn't it?' she replied looking amazed the man needed to ask.

'Good girl,' Takumi said smiling at her.

'Alright,' Keisuke added, 'I'll root for your cousins, since no one here does.'

Kaori was too busy with her mobile phone to even hear the comment.

Down at the track, her boyfriend had finally managed to get close enough to Junya's S18 to strike his first attack. They were both covering the seventh lap and Seisuke knew that if he didn't overtake Junya soon, he would run out of time to go after his older brother and. For this reason, the instant the two cars entered the parabolic, Seisuke tried to overtake using the outside of the wide turn.

He had almost managed to level with Junya when he saw the light blue car getting close, too close. Knowing that Junya was going to push him out of the way made Seisuke go even wider and, in the end, the Silvia still exited the parabolic still ahead. Not giving up, Seisuke kept on the outside of the circuit and as the two cars got onto the main straight, he decided to floor it. This time there was nothing Junya could do: the RZ-1 was more powerful than his S18 and for this reason it was a piece of cake for Seisuke to overtake Junya. The future doctor smiled when, entering the big hairpin, he caught sight of the NISMO tuned Nissan on his Mazda's rear view mirror as he left it far behind.

'Now,' Seisuke said focusing ahead, 'it's your turn, Aniki.'

The yellow RZ-1 was five seconds ahead of him so if Seisuke wanted to catch up with him, he needed to push it as much as Akito was pushing it while he drove behind a very stubborn Kazuya. With only twelve laps to go, Akito was beginning to run out of patience so, while the two cars covered one of the right-handers in the mid section of the track, the young racer decided that he'd had enough of this nonsense: Kazuya was exiting the corner when he saw the silver nose of Akito's Vera on the outside. He knew that the way this corner went on to connect with a fast left-hander there wouldn't be enough road for Akito to slow down and the younger guy would probably be sent off the track. For this reason Kazuya decided to stay right where he was making a huge mistake.

'What the…'

He watched powerless while Akito, in what was an insanely fast manoeuvre, first drifted out of the corner in one direction then, without slowing down at all, he nearly inverted the way in which his car was drifting making it get into the left-hander without having lost any of its speed and, what was even more important, right ahead of Kazuya's Honda who was so shocked that he nearly missed the corner altogether.

'Oh,' Takumi gasped seeing what his son had just done.

'Reminds me of something,' Keisuke commented throwing a sideways glance at him.

'I didn't teach him that,' Takumi defended himself.

'Ah no?' Keisuke asked, 'who did…ah, I see.'

There was only one person in this world who was crazy enough to show a fifteen year old how to do a four wheel inertia drift and, seeing how the kid had already managed to master the highly advanced manoeuvre made him wonder about which other techniques Akito might have picked up from his grandfather. Keisuke returned his attention to the track just in time to see Kizuna leaving Masato behind while Kei found himself under Eiji's attack. Yuta and Izawa were also engaged in their own personal dogfight.

But that level of tension was nothing compared to what was going on in the first four positions: Kyosuke had finally realised that he had his younger brother on his tail while Akito was quickly closing on Junya looking ready to "thank" him for making his race interesting. All of this with less than ten laps to go.

'We're going to see fireworks,' Keisuke commented.

Right at that moment, they all noticed how Kyosuke had started increasing his pace, probably trying to widen the gap which separated him from his brother. Unfortunately for him, Seisuke was quick enough to copy him and soon both RZ-1s were cruising down the main straight at the exact same speed. That was until they got to the hairpin which Kyosuke cleared a bit faster than Seisuke.

Behind them, Akito's Vera was already stuck to Junya's S18. He steeled himself while both cars covered the main straight and, right at the same spot where Junya had sent him off the track, Akito turned his car towards Junya's almost as if he wanted to hit him too. That made Junya instinctively move away from him missing the correct entry point to the hairpin. It was only too easy for Akito to get ahead of him.

'Go baby go!' Ryoko shouted happily while Akito's father smiled proudly.

Knowing better than to think Junya would give up so easily, Akito started pulling away from him trying to get as much distance between the two cars. Junya was furious that Akito had managed to catch up with him and right at the following corner, when the track started going slightly downhill, Junya showed the reason why he was the Golden Arrows downhill ace by levelling with Akito as the two cars approached one of the circuit's right-handers.

Akito would have none of that and, blocking him at the turn's exit, he managed to keep on his third position for an entire lap then, right as they were driving around the parabolic to finish what would be the fifteenth lap out of twenty, he saw that Junya was now getting ready to hit him again. Akito refused to feel intimidated and, just as the S18 closed up on him, Akito braced himself for the impact.

This time and since he was ready for it, he managed to keep the car onto the tarmac but, for some reason, Junya wasn't quite so lucky. In fact, Akito saw as the guy had driven super-wide and out of the circuit while Akito exited the parabolic still holding to his third position but, by the time he got onto the straight, Junya had somehow managed to get back onto the tarmac and was still right behind him.

'Geez he's stubborn,' Akito complained.

There were only five more laps to go and while Akito was doing his best to shake Junya off his back, Seisuke had finally caught up with his older brother or, rather, in typical Kyosuke style, the older sibling had decided to challenge the younger by slowing down a little. Seisuke knew better than to feel offended by the move and, instead, he decided to take the chance to see check just how good Kyosuke was.

Negotiating the only chicane of the circuit, Seisuke started thinking of potential spots where he could overtake his brother. He knew that with both cars being exactly the same, he would lose in a power match, he would also lose if he tried to outsmart his brother. The only chance he had was if, for some reason, Kyosuke made a mistake which meant that he only had one possible strategy: pressing him into making one.

For the following three corners, both RZ-1s became practically glued to each other.

Behind them, Akito was still in third place in spite of Junya's best efforts to get him out of the track. The older guy was growing tired of seeing the back of the Vera but he now had another problem: his cousin Kazuya was right behind him getting ready to overtake him the instant Junya let his guard down. Which would have to happen at any given point, considering that he only had two more laps to leave the brat behind.

At long last, all cars crossed the line for what would be the penultimate time with Kyosuke still in first place, Seisuke literally stuck to him, Akito was third followed by Junya, Kazuya, Kizuna, Masato, Eiji, Kei, Izawa and Yuta who was still last having been unable to overtake Izawa. The three people at the grandstand who were watching the race knew that even if there was only one lap left, anything could happen.

And it did.

The instant they got to the first hairpin, Seisuke tried to overtake his older brother by going wide. Kyosuke defended himself by changing trajectory half way through the corner in a physics defying manoeuvre. He then opened the throttle and, by the end of the hairpin, the two brothers were level with each other then, out of the blue, Kyosuke got his RZ-1 to go even faster leaving Seisuke behind.

A couple of seconds later, at the same spot, Akito got a bit of a breather when, just as Kazuya had hoped all along, Junya moved wide to try and overtake Akito. Kazuya used that moment to overtake Junya making the S18 driver so furious that he even lost control of his car for a moment, making it visibly wobble. Akito knew that while this was good news, he couldn't rest easy just yet: Kazuya was definitely not going to stay still.

Masato meanwhile was trying to catch up with Kizuna while also defending himself from Eiji's persistent attacks and, at the same time, Kei was also trying to pass Eiji but he too was pressed by Izawa who simply refused to end the race in penultimate position. Yuta meanwhile decided that he was happy where he was and, out of all of them, he was the only one who wasn't fighting with someone.

The RZ-1s were already closing the final two kilometres of the course with Seisuke still trying to overtake his brother when, glancing at his rear view mirrors, he saw the one car he definitely didn't need to see now: Akito's silver Vera had somehow managed to catch up with him leaving Kazuya behind. Seisuke swallowed nervously while he tried to remember that he was the best when it came to defending himself.

Kyosuke noticed the moment when his brother eased up the pressure and went to check what had happened when he saw Akito's Vera levelling with Seisuke just as the two cars entered the parabolic. His eyes widening with the shock, Kyosuke felt his foot increasing the pressure on the gas, as if his own body was telling him that he needed to get away from there fast. It was only that which allowed him to clear the super wide corner and, shortly after that, cross the finish line.

Right behind him, Seisuke saw his second place vanish the moment he and Akito made it to the end of the race, with Akito's Vera half a car ahead. He wanted to be depressed about it but, seeing his best friend dashing past him, Seisuke felt a smile curving his lips and, letting out a resigned sigh, he slowed down a bit.

Junya and Kazuya were still pretty much fighting with each other by the time the two crossed the line and, in the end, it was Junya who managed to get ahead of his cousin. Behind them, Kizuna had managed to hold on to her very respectable sixth place while Masato had to settle for seventh. Eiji had managed to pass Kei too while Izawa and Yuta were in the same exact positions as they had started the race.

'What a race!' Keisuke exclaimed laughing.

He and Takumi, together with the two girls joined Akito and the Golden Arrows while they all climbed out of their cars, leaving them all pretty much scattered at the end of the main straight. Kyosuke was rather pleased with the result but felt deeply disappointed that Junya had ruined the chances of him having a fair fight with Akito. Funnily enough, Junya was furious with Kazuya precisely because of the same reason.

'Why did you do that?' he demanded aggressively.

'Hey,' Kazuya replied calmly, 'in case you failed to notice, I was racing too.'

Junya was going to counter that when Keisuke got there and, talking to him, he said:

'You didn't exactly show a high level of sportsmanship either, especially at the start of the race.'

The whole team watched to see what Junya dared to say anything to the owner of the Centre but, predictably enough, he didn't say a word, instead, he threw a dirty glance at Kazuya who looked pretty much unfazed by the whole thing. Instead, he walked towards Akito who was chatting with Seisuke while their girlfriends listened to them.

'Hey,' Kazuya said, 'I've finally figured out what makes you different from us.'

'What do you mean?' Akito asked frowning a little.

'You see,' Kazuya explained, 'all of us have more or less the same killer instinct you have and that's the reason why we all hate to lose a race but there's something you have or, rather, that you don't have.'

'And what is that?' the young racer asked.

'Self-preservation,' Kazuya replied then, seeing the younger guy's confused face, he added, 'you're not afraid of anything when you race, are you?' Akito's expression became even more puzzled, 'you see?' Kazuya chuckled, 'you don't even know what I'm talking about.'

'Er…' Akito said looking completely lost.

'Don't think too hard about it,' Seisuke intervened, 'you know you're not good at that.'

Akito was about to retort when Keisuke asked everyone for their attention.

'Now,' the man said, 'you should all get the cars back in the car park, get changed and go to the main meeting room. There's a little something my wife and daughter have prepared to finish this off in style.'

Fifteen minutes later the whole team was gathered outside the meeting room but neither Ryoko nor the two older men were anywhere to be seen. They found Kaori there who said that she had been told to wait there and then Kyosuke finally realised what was going on and, pushing the two large wooden doors open, he felt guilty that he'd nearly forgot about it.

'HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KIZUNA-SAN!' Ryoko chanted.

Kyosuke saw his girlfriend's eyes widen with shock while everyone saw a massive cake the icing of which copied the pattern of an Indy Racing League circuit and, on top of the "track" they saw nineteen little car-shaped candles. Kizuna felt so overwhelmed by it that she knew that she would burst into tears.

'Hey,' Kyosuke said smiling softly, 'you're not going to cry, are you?'

'Of course not,' Kizuna replied with a slightly shaky voice.

'Come one everybody,' Kyoko said, 'this cake is huge so you better be hungry.'

Everyone nodded for, after a very busy afternoon, they were all positively ravishing and they all more or less agreed that this was the perfect end for a perfect day. Only Kaori seemed to be distracted but, for once, it wasn't because she was bored off her mind but, because she had just noticed something which would probably make her life much easier: unless she was very much mistaken, what Kyosuke and Kizuna shared was a lot less platonic than what Seisuke wanted her to believe.

_To be continued…_


	21. Chapter Twenty

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty_

Kyosuke parked his RZ-1 in front of the apartment block where Kizuna lived at exactly seven o'clock in the morning like he'd agreed with her before leaving the Centre. He knew that it was unlikely that she'd be late for he was slowly learning that, unlike other girls, Kizuna was always terribly punctual and he hadn't even turned the engine off when he saw her walking out of the building.

'Just as I expected,' Kyosuke muttered to himself, his lips curving up a little.

He observed her while she made her way to the car: she was back to wearing her usual pair of jeans but, instead of a t-shirt, she had a very pretty and rather feminine looking yellow shirt with three quarter length sleeves. She had also a pair of matching canvas shoes that while comfortable to walk on, they also made her look awfully cute. Kyosuke's smile widened when she opened the door and, climbing into the car, he noticed that she was wearing perfume too, it smelled of roses.

'Good morning,' she said.

'Good morning,' he repeated then, as casually as possible, he added, 'you look great.'

'It's all part of Ryoko's makeover,' she confessed, 'I wouldn't have bought anything yellow myself but she insisted that it looked good on me and there was nothing I could say that would make her change her mind.'

'She's right though,' Kyosuke said, 'it really suits you.'

'Thanks,' Kizuna replied shyly.

Kyosuke felt very self conscious all of a sudden and started debating whether it would be okay to give her a peck then, shaking his head once, he decided that it was way too soon to start behaving like that with her so, instead, he decided to get the car moving and not knowing what to say, he spent the twenty minutes it took them to get from Maebashi to Takasaki Station in complete silence. He only spoke to her when he parked the RZ-1 at the station.

'The train leaves in fifteen minutes,' he said.

'Ah,' Kizuna gasped, 'we should hurry then.'

'Yes,' Kyosuke confirmed.

At exactly the same time, the two of them climbed out of the car and, also together, they closed the doors with one single motion. That made them exchange a glance over the car's roof while they smiled at each other thinking that it was rather bizarre the way they seemed to be in absolute synchrony. They even opened their mouth to speak a the same time but Kyosuke, being a gentleman, said:

'You first.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said, 'just wanted to thank you for the trip.'

'But we haven't left yet,' Kyosuke pointed out.

'I know,' Kizuna said, 'it's just in case I forget to say it later.'

Kyosuke nodded once and then, they started making their way to the station where he insisted on paying for both of their tickets ignoring Kizuna's protests that it was the twenty first century and that she wanted to pay for her own share of the expenses they would have during the day. Kyosuke shook his head and said:

'No way.'

'But…'

'Kizuna,' he interrupted her gently but firmly, 'I'm only going to say this once: I suggested this trip and I'm going to be paying for everything, including whichever souvenirs we might want to buy. Twenty first century or not, I'm the sort of guy who feels like crap if his girlfriend pays for stuff so, please humour me.'

The girl remained mute, not because she couldn't think of ways to counter his point but because she'd just hear him referring to him as his girlfriend for the first time and that made her get butterflies in her stomach. She'd never felt like that in her whole life and now she didn't know what to do.

'Let's go,' Kyosuke told her offering his hand to her.

Kizuna looked at the hand for a brief moment then, shaking her head, she smiled at him and took it in hers.

'Again,' she said, 'you Takahashi can't take a no as an answer.'

'Nope,' Kyosuke replied smiling at her, 'keep that in mind, okay?'

'Alright,' she conceded, 'for now and only because you won the race yesterday.'

Kyosuke let out a soft chuckle then, the two of them took the escalator up the platform and, from one of the vending machines there, they got a couple of cans of juice so that they could drink something while they waited for the train. Kizuna hadn't even opened her can when she saw the Joetsu Shinkansen approaching a lot faster than she thought it wise. She was about to look at Kyosuke in worry when she saw that the train's highly efficient brakes made it stop right at the spot where it was supposed to.

'Wow,' she gasped.

'First time you're on one of them?' Kyosuke asked her while the two got onboard the train.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'when I came here from Narita I took normal trains. I thought that the Shinkansen would be too complicated for me and I really didn't want to get lost while trying to get to Maebashi.'

'No,' Kyosuke decided, 'that would have been a very bad idea.'

She nodded trying not to think that he had just sounded a little too serious for what was supposed to be a light hearted statement and while they found their seats, Kizuna reflected on the fact that if she had never found Maebashi, she would have never met Kyosuke. That thought made her get rather serious too.

'So,' he said once they were seated, 'did you have fun yesterday?'

'Of course,' Kizuna replied, 'that birthday cake was a bit too much though. I wasn't expecting it at all!'

'Well,' Kyosuke reasoned, 'that was the whole point, you know?'

'Yes,' Kizuna said, 'but your cousin had already gone through the trouble of buying me a birthday present the day before so I didn't think she'd do anything else and besides, we were there to celebrate Akito's promotion, weren't we? I hope he didn't feel that I…'

'Hey,' Kyosuke interrupted her, 'Ryoko loves doing this kind of things so don't think for a second she had to "trouble" herself, any excuse is a good one to organise a party and go shopping for her so imagine if she actually has a legit reason to do it. As per Akito, he was very grateful that you took a lot of the focus off him. In case you haven't noticed, he simply hates being in the centre of the attention.'

'He does?' Kizuna asked sounding surprised.

'Oh yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'other than behind a steering wheel, he's just a kid who is not as confident as you might think. In fact, Seisuke and I often tease him because of it, mainly because we're worried about how he's going to cope once he'll be thrown head first into the professional racing world.'

'He's not going to like it much,' Kizuna decided.

'That's an understatement,' Kyosuke said laughing softly, 'just try to imagine him facing the press.'

Kizuna made the effort of seeing the poor kid in front of a whole panel of journalists firing questions at him and taking snapshots. She smiled a bit while she pictured Akito hiding under the table trying to disappear.

'Yeah,' she finally said, 'he better get ready or they'll eat him alive.'

'Exactly,' Kyosuke replied happy that she'd see his point, 'anyway,' he continued, 'what did you think of the challenges? Did you figure out what they were for and what we were supposed to learn from them?'

'Kind of,' she replied, 'I'm not too sure about the details but I know that we covered every aspect of what will help us become better and faster drivers. But I didn't understand the reason why we had to drive an F3 car, I mean, we're never going to race with one of them, are we?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'but that's the whole point.'

While Kizuna looked at him feeling a bit confused, she realised that at some point during their conversation the train had started moving and from through the window all she could see was a furiously fast blur.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said seeing that she wasn't going to speak, 'the point of driving an F3 car was to show us how in comparison driving our cars is relatively easy. There's nothing harder to drive than a single seater, not only because its behaviour is so radically different but also because it's difficult to get used to.'

'That's true,' Kizuna observed.

'Akito,' he added, 'and all other racers spend ages training themselves to drive those cars and even they have problems keeping them under control. I think that whoever was in that car yesterday felt relieved once they got back onboard their rides. That was the first lesson we needed to learn: familiarity with the vehicle is always a very powerful factor when it comes to be the fastest racer.'

Kizuna just nodded.

'The we had the sudden acceleration/braking test,' he continued, 'I don't know if you noticed that if one calibrates the increase on the amount of pressure on the throttle the car accelerates much more easily without forcing the engine too much, the timing in which we stepped on the brake was also crucial and it was designed to test our reflexes as well as making us realise the true extend of our car's braking power.'

'Wow,' Kizuna gasped, 'you figured all that much by yourself?'

'No,' he confessed, 'I had a long talk with my father last night before I went to bed.'

'Your father?' Kizuna asked him, 'I thought it was your uncle and Takumi-san who organised the event.'

'They did,' Kyosuke explained with a smile, 'but it turns out that they planned the whole thing with my father's help who isn't anywhere near as rusty as he wants us all to believe. In fact, I think he's still secretly tuning his FC when he thinks no one is watching and he'd probably take it for a serious spin somewhere if it weren't because my mother would get mad at him and, believe me, you don't want to see my mother when she's angry.'

'No, I don't,' she replied.

She remembered the tiny and almost frail looking woman she'd met at the Arakawa Hospital and the sensation she had got when she'd seen the fire in her eyes and the firmness in her tone of voice. She knew that in spite of how mild she seemed to be, she could probably be rather intimidating if she got ticked off.

'Anyway,' Kyosuke said, 'didn't you find it odd that they put mannequins there instead of cones?'

'Yeah,' she admitted, 'that was rather weird.'

'Well,' Kyosuke said, 'my father thought that if we saw human-shaped obstacles, in addition to having to control the car while we drifted, we would also need to fight the urge to drive away from what our brain perceived as people. That, he reckoned, would give us an extra handicap.'

'It did,' Kizuna commented, 'look at the way the poor Yuta reacted when he ran over one of them.'

'Precisely,' Kyosuke replied, 'we then had the cone slalom which was timed to put extra pressure on us. That one and the mannequin drift were thought out to test how well we handled our cars when under stress.'

'And the eight-shaped one?' Kizuna asked.

'That was for us to see that we still have a long way to go,' Kyosuke replied.

'A dose of humility syrup,' Kizuna decided and for some reason that made him laugh.

'Yeah,' he said nodding, 'that's what it was: a large dose of humility syrup.'

'Well,' she said, 'it worked because after seeing your uncle doing that at his age and with the first car he could find was pretty impressive, not to mention the fact that not even you or Akito were able to copy him.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied not looking too happy, 'I can't believe I lost control of my RZ-1 so badly. I don't think I remember the last time it happened, maybe when I first drove it on my own down Mt Akagi. To my defence, it was January and everything was covered with snow.'

'It's okay,' she hurried to say, 'it's not like you need to justify yourself. Do you want me to tell you what happened to the first car I ever drove?' she asked him then, seeing his nod, she said, 'I smashed it so badly that not even my uncle could repair it so we had to send it to the scrap yard.'

'What were you trying to do?' Kyosuke asked sounding a tad too worried.

'Nothing I will ever try and emulate again,' Kizuna replied clearly not wanting to recall the memory.

Kyosuke nodded to that too and, after that, they started talking about their very first driving experiences, with Kyosuke explaining to her about the day when he and Seisuke had first met Akito and the fact that they'd race together ever since, first at the Centre while they were all underage and how the three would train in Mt Akagi the instant Akito got his driving license. To Kizuna it seemed like Kyosuke was looking forward to that moment even more than Akito himself.

Roughly seventy minutes after their departure Kyosuke announced that they had to get off the train for they were arriving at Ueno Station, the penultimate stop before the Joetsu Shinkansen ended its journey in Tokyo Station. Kizuna was wondering the reason why they were getting off before that when Kyosuke said:

'There's something I want you to see here.'

'Alright,' she said feeling just a little unsettled that he sometimes seemed to be able to read her thoughts.

In any case, she followed him off the train and soon they found themselves in a very modern looking station complete with a huge shopping centre as well as every possible restaurant and café, ready to cater the pickiest traveller with several delicacies. Kizuna was starting to feel a tad hungry but she remembered that he had insisted on paying for everything so she felt reluctant to say anything about it.

'Have you had breakfast?' he asked her.

'Er…'

'Because I haven't,' he said, 'and my parents will get ballistic if they know I've skipped the morning meal. You know, sometimes it's a great thing having two doctors in the family but very often it's a royal pain.'

'I can imagine,' Kizuna said, 'I bet that faking any illnesses when you were kids in order to skip school was totally out of the question.'

'Oh yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'Seisuke once tried to, I think we were six and seven, and our parents threatened him to have him admitted to one of the hospitals where they would do all sorts of very nasty tests on him to figure out what was wrong with him. Needless to say, Seisuke was the subject of a miraculous recovery.'

Kizuna laughed softly then, remembering what he'd just said, she asked:

'Why did you say one of the hospitals? How many are they?'

'Three,' Kyosuke replied casually, 'one in Maebashi and two in Takasaki. Plus we have a day clinic in Isesaki as well as a number of practitioners who work for the Arakawa Takahashi Medical Group and who are spread over Gunma, Nagano and Tochigi.'

'Wow,' she gasped feeling dismayed.

'I thought you knew,' Kyosuke said sounding a little concerned, 'didn't Ryoko tell you?'

'No,' Kizuna replied almost wishing the younger girl had, 'we never talked all that much about it, she just said that your family managed the Arakawa Hospital and that they owned the Motorsports Centre, I…'

'This doesn't change anything,' he said making it sound a bit like a question.

'No,' she replied, 'of course it doesn't.'

'Good,' Kyosuke said then, deciding that they had been standing there for long enough, he said, 'let's get something to eat, okay?'

'Alright,' she managed to say.

She followed him to a café there where he immediately asked for a full traditional Japanese breakfast as well as a couple of cups of tea. Kizuna said that it was way too much food but he insisted that they were going to do a lot of walking around so they would need the extra energy. Faced with such a flawless reasoning, she just nodded while she watched the waiter serving an almost indecent amount of fish, rice and sweet pickles together with two steaming cups of green tea from Shizuoka.

'Do you like it?' he asked her while she took a sip.

'It's perfect,' she replied.

His smile made her think that she needed to stop being stupid about the money issue. Not because she knew that he could more than afford it but because he was genuinely enjoying treating her like a princess and, for once in her life, Kizuna decided to relax and enjoy what was going to be the best first date ever and, after their late breakfast, the two made their way to the Ueno Park adjacent to the station.

There, not only there was one of the biggest and best kept parks she'd seen in her whole life but there also was a zoo which they chose not to visit because Kyosuke said that they would probably need all day to see all the animals properly but as soon as Kizuna saw the alternative she was happy they had ditched the zoo so that they could visit the Tokyo National Museum with its extensive collection of ancient Japanese art.

'Oh wow,' she gasped softly while admiring a beautiful hand painted kimono, 'that's gorgeous.'

'It is,' he agreed, he then checked the guide and said, 'it's from the ninth century.'

Kizuna glanced at him quickly before she returned her attention to the ancient and probably priceless garment. She tried to imagine the sort of person who had worn the beautiful kimono, deciding that it had to be a member of the Imperial Family because unless she was mistaken, the golden parts in it were actually made of gold. She simply couldn't believe someone would wear something like that.

'Let's go,' Kyosuke said taking her by her hand.

They completed the tour in about an hour and from there, bypassing a fair bit of it since it was nearly eleven o'clock and they still had a lot of things which they wanted to visit and their train left at seven thirty pm. For this reason, they soon got out of the museum and walked towards the Ueno underground station so that they could take the Hibiya line to Akihabara. Kizuna remembered that she had told Kyosuke about wanting to see place which was famous mainly for having every electronic gadget imaginable as well as being the Mecca for anime and manga lovers.

'You're alright?' Kyosuke asked her while they were on the train.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'its just that it's the first time I ride the underground.'

'I have a confession to make,' Kyosuke said, 'me too.'

'Really?' Kizuna asked, 'but surely you've visited Tokyo before, I mean…'

'I have,' Kyosuke said, 'but with my parents and there's no way you'll get my father on a train, come to think of it, I don't think he's ever taken any form of public transportation in his whole life: it's probably against his religion.'

Kizuna laughed at that and was still smiling at his comment when they got off at Akihabara Station, only two stops away from Ueno. They soon found themselves surrounded by an enormous amount of people who came and went from the numerous shops, cafés and stores which densely populated the area. Kyosuke took her to one of the electronic stores and the two were checking one of the latest models of laptops when they heard a very familiar sounding voice coming from behind them.

'Kyosuke-san?'

The two turned round and at the same time they both said:

'Yuta?'

'It is you,' Yuta said oblivious to the stunned expression which had appeared on their faces, 'I thought I had seen you crossing the street,' he explained indicating Kizuna, 'but I wasn't sure till I saw your hair,' he added looking at Kyosuke's bleached spikes, 'and I knew it could only be you two. I'm so surprised to find you here of all places! I mean, I didn't think you'd be into this kind of stuff…'

'Well,' Kyosuke said being the first one to recover from the shock, 'Kizuna's never been to Tokyo and she said that she'd heard of Akihabara and wanted to visit it so, here we are.'

'You come here often?' Kizuna asked Yuta.

'Oh yes,' he replied, 'as often as I can, can you see that building over there?' he asked pointing at nearby place, he saw them nodding and he added, 'well, in the fourth floor there's the café where the girl I like works so I always go there to visit her.'

Kyosuke simply could not find his voice to say anything to that.

'That's…' Kizuna tried, 'very thoughtful of you,' she finished.

'I know,' Yuta replied proudly, 'I'm hoping that one day she might want to go out with me.'

'Have you ever asked her out?' Kyosuke finally managed to ask.

'No way,' Yuta replied as though as the idea was preposterous, 'she's the most popular girl in the café, if I ask her out the management will get really angry with her and they might not allow me to visit her again.'

'What kind of café is it?' Kizuna asked, she was beginning to get a very disturbing picture in her mind.

'You guys want to come with me?' Yuta asked sounding very enthusiastic as well as hopeful.

'Er…' Kyosuke hesitated glancing at Kizuna who, unable to resist the puppy eyes Yuta was giving them, she sighed and nodded, 'alright,' Kyosuke said, 'I guess it'll be okay if we have a cup of coffee.'

Yuta smiled at them and then he took off in the direction of the place. They followed him into an elevator which reminded her that in Tokyo most places could only be reached by elevator. At the fourth floor, the doors opened to reveal the last place Kizuna would ever expected to visit: a Maid Cafés, one of those places where the waitresses were dressed in French Maid uniforms and who called their clients with funny names.

'Yukkun!' one of them exclaimed sounding way too happy, 'you're earlier than usual!'

'And you've brought a friend!' another one added, this one ignored Kizuna and looking up at Kyosuke, she made an exceedingly cute face and said, 'you're so cool! What's your name?'

'Er…'

'Kyosuke-san,' Yuta supplied all too helpfully.

'Kyokkun!' the first girl squealed sounding even more cheerful.

Kizuna bit her lips trying not to burst out laughing when she saw Kyosuke's eyes widening as far as they went and his horrified expression when the two girls decided to kidnap him so that they could start pampering him like a king. They only asked Kizuna what she wanted to drink when both guys had been properly looked after and she noticed that the service they granted her was significantly less effusive.

'Oh-my-God,' an overwhelmed Kyosuke told her the instant they had left Yuta.

The guy had decided to stay at the café while he had his third cappuccino, this time served by the girl he seemed to have a crush on: a very tiny and but very pretty girl who appeared to be around Ryoko's age. Kizuna was seriously shocked by what she'd seen up to then and she didn't even have the strength to comment on it. Instead, she remained silent all the way to the Higashi Ginza station. They bypassed the Mitsukoshi department store and were walking past the Kabuki Theatre when Kizuna said:

'I've always wanted to see a kabuki play.'

'Really?' Kyosuke asked her.

'Oh yes,' she replied, 'but I've heard they go on for hours and we don't have that much time.'

'We do,' Kyosuke countered, 'and at any rate, I know that they do shorter segments for tourists who don't want to watch the whole thing. If you want to, I'm sure we can get into one of the late morning shows.'

Kizuna's expression provided him with the answer he needed and soon the two of them were inside the old theatre, sitting in the dark onto two plush red seats with a group of people who, just as Kyosuke had told her, were mostly foreigners visiting Tokyo. She even heard a few Americans among them and that made her feel somewhat homesick. Thankfully, the play started very shortly afterwards and watching the powerful performance made her forget about everything else.

'That was great,' she said when she and Kyosuke walked out of the theatre.

'I'm glad you liked it,' he replied then, he pointed at a family restaurant nearby and said, 'lunch?'

The girl nodded and even though she wasn't particularly hungry, she still followed him into the restaurant where she chose to eat a Caesar salad and a glass of coke. Kyosuke eat a full steak with peppercorn sauce and roasted potatoes saying that for once he was going to go wild and not eat the traditional Japanese food he seemed to prefer. Kizuna gave him a benevolent smile thinking that judging by the old fashioned way in which he behaved it seemed like Kyosuke had been born in the wrong century.

She grew more convinced of this idea when she and Kyosuke visited the Imperial Palace: seeing him in the very old but massive construction was too easy to imagine him wearing a samurai armour and yielding the two katana the ancient Japanese soldiers were famous for. He really seemed to be in his element walking around the park explaining to her all sorts of stories about the history of the Imperial Family.

'I'm boring you, aren't I?' he asked worriedly when they left the place nearly three hours later.

'Of course not,' she hurried to say, 'Kyosuke, how can you even think that?'

'I don't know,' he said, 'it's just that I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job, I'm…'

Kizuna glanced around herself to see if they were alone on the street and not seeing anyone, she stopped right in front of him and, getting on her tiptoes, grabbed herself onto his shoulders and kissed him.

'That's as much as I'm enjoying myself,' she said.

The girl started walking again as if nothing had happened. Kyosuke followed her and taking her hand in his, he smiled in the way which made Kizuna feel like she was about to take off propelled by sheer happiness. She simply could not believe that this was only their first date because somewhere in her heart, she felt like she'd known Kyosuke her whole life and not just under three months. That thought scared her a little because she knew that she had just gone past the point in which she could imagine her life without him.

'It's too bad,' Kyosuke said taking her out of her reverie and she was about to wonder if he had read her thoughts once again when he added, 'I wish we didn't have to go home but I'm supposed to work on a paper tomorrow and I haven't finished doing all the research I need to do.'

'It's okay,' Kizuna replied, 'I need to do some studying too,' she said, 'besides, we need to promise each other that we'll be our most strict to one another. If you see me slacking off, you need to tell me as I'll tell you if you do, okay?'

'Yes ma'am,' he said smiling at her.

'I'm serious,' she insisted.

'I know,' Kyosuke replied sobering up, 'and I also know that one of the conditions for you to date me is that I don't distract you from your course so I'll make sure you keep your marks up so that we can be together without you feeling bad about it. I give you my word that I won't hold you down.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said, 'then you've got mine.'

She put her hand in front of his expecting him to shake it and seal the deal when, instead, he took it in his and, bringing it to his lips, he kissed it softly. He then looked up to her with some very strong emotion reflected on his face, he said:

'You have no idea how happy you've made me today.'

She couldn't reply, she had a knot tying her throat.

'I'll do my best to make you this happy too,' he promised.

Kizuna found herself feeling like she was travelling on a cloud and she barely noticed when they rode the Shinkansen to Takasaki nor when he drove her back home to Maebashi. Kizuna had never felt happier in her whole life and thinking that Kyosuke intended to make her even happier was too much for her poor heart to handle so the instant she got into the apartment, stopping only to take her shoes off, she ran to her bedroom and throwing herself onto the bed, Kizuna started crying out of sheer happiness and, a little bit of fear too.

Meanwhile, Kyosuke drove back to the Takahashi residence feeling very accomplished. He'd been so worried during the entire week which had preceded their date that he had had trouble sleeping but now, having seen Kizuna's face while riding the train and as he took her home he knew that he'd finally managed to get as close to her heart as she was getting to his. He now understood the reason why both Seisuke and Akito had always been so protective of their feelings towards the girls they both loved because if that's how one felt when one was in love, there was little wonder why so many people craved for it and how such a strong emotion could be the source of so much trouble.

It was definitely scary but, he reckoned, it was worth it.

Kyosuke was so busy pondering all of this that he failed to see his younger brother leaning against the white RZ-1 as if he'd been waiting for him for a long time. He only noticed him when he got out of his car and heard him speaking with an unusually cold tone of voice.

'So Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'did you have fun today with your _girlfriend_?'

_To be continued…_


	22. Chapter Twenty One

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty One_

Closing the RZ-1's door as slowly as he could, hoping that this way he would gather the courage he needed to look at his younger brother's face, Kyosuke flinched seeing not the upset or even angry expression he expected but rather, something which was a hundred times worse: profound disappointment.

'Seisuke…'

His brother got up from his car and closed the short distance that separated the two Mazda in the garage.

'Don't get me wrong,' he said still with a glacial tone, 'I'm not upset because you told everyone except me…'

'I didn't,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'the only one who knew was Ryoko.'

'Oh please,' Seisuke hissed, 'I never though you'd become a liar.'

'I'm not a…'

'You are,' Seisuke countered furiously, 'how do you think I felt when Kazuya called me to tell me that they've heard from Yuta that you and Kizuna had gone on a date to Tokyo? Imagine Kazuya's surprise when I told him that I had no idea of what he was talking about.'

'Oh God,' Kyosuke said.

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied sounding icier yet, 'you know, I'm used to your minding your own business and never letting anyone in but I honestly hoped you'd be nice enough to tell me about this new development in your relationship with Kizuna,' he stopped and, now looking positively upset, he added, 'especially when that information would have been awfully useful to me twenty four hours ago.'

'Why?' Kyosuke managed to ask.

'Because now Kaori thinks I've lied to her,' Seisuke replied darkly.

'But…'

'It turns out,' Seisuke continued, plainly ignoring his older brother, 'that even my girlfriend knew that you and Kizuna had started seeing each other and she thinks that the reason I gave her to justify the fact that Kizuna had been invited here was nothing but a big fat lie and now she's not talking to me anymore.'

Seeing his little brother so depressed made Kyosuke feel like he'd just been punched on the face.

'I'm sorry, I…'

'Forget it,' Seisuke interrupted him, 'like I said, I'm used to it so, if you don't mind, I need to go and figure out a way to get Kaori to believe me,' he then walked away and had nearly reached the door which connected the garage with the main house when Kyosuke rushed towards his brother, placing his hand onto one of his shoulders.

'Wait.'

Seisuke just shook him off and, as if nothing had happened, he just opened the door walking through it and leaving Kyosuke standing there with his arm still half way up in the air. He lowered it slowly feeling that after the extreme happiness he'd felt all day, the horrible guilt he felt now was too much to cope with. Moving automatically, Kyosuke walked back to his car leaning against it while he thought of a way to fix this mess.

A few moments later, he decided that the first person he needed to take care of was Seisuke so, getting back up from his car, he made his way into the house and without stopping to greet anyone, he started climbing up the stairs taking two steps at a time.

'Kyosuke…' he heard his cousin's voice somewhere behind him.

'Not now Ryoko,' he said without stopping to turn round.

A couple of seconds later he found himself in front of Seisuke's bedroom's door and, taking a deep breath, he knocked on it a couple of times. He then waited, and prayed, so that his brother would open up for him.

He didn't.

'Seisuke,' he tried, 'let me come in, I need to…'

The door opened just in that instant.

'What do you want?'

'I want to talk to you,' Kyosuke said refusing to let his younger brother's tone to dent his determination.

'Aniki…'

'Please,' Kyosuke insisted.

That made Seisuke's expression soften a little, after all, it wasn't every day that he heard his older brother asking him for something "please" and even though he clearly didn't feel like talking about it, he took a step backwards and with a slight gesture with his head, Seisuke indicated him to come into his bedroom.

'Thanks,' Kyosuke said.

Seisuke remained silent while he closed the door then, he walked towards the black leather armchair which was his second pride and joy after his RZ-1 and sitting on it, he crossed both his legs and his arms and said:

'Let's hear it.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke started, 'I messed up badly. I know I should have told you the minute Kizuna agreed to go out with me and for this I'm very sorry and I hope that you'll forgive me. That said, I think the solution to your problems with Kaori is a very simple one.'

'Oh really?' Seisuke asked sounding highly sceptical.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied firmly, 'look, all Kaori wants is for you to introduce her to Mum and Dad, right?'

'Yes but…'

'Then why don't you do it?' Kyosuke asked him.

Seisuke stared at him in disbelief.

'I mean,' Kyosuke continued, 'if that's what's going to make her happy, I think you should do it.'

'Aniki,' he finally said, 'that's not the point. You know how I fooled around with girls since…well, for too long. With Kaori it's different and I just don't want to rush things more than they need to, including something as important as formally introducing her to Mum and Dad. That's the reason why I want to wait.'

'But that's causing you problems,' Kyosuke pointed out.

'So?' Seisuke countered, 'it's not the first time we argue and it probably won't be the last.'

'Seisuke,' he said feeling uncertain that he had the right to ask him, 'are you happy with her?'

'Er…' he hesitated for a little too long, 'I guess.'

'You guess?' Kyosuke asked him his uncertainty quickly becoming concern.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, his tone of voice sounding almost normal, 'no offence or anything but you've just gone on your first date, don't you think it's a little too early for you to go around offering advice on relationships?'

Kyosuke felt rather awkward even more because Seisuke was no longer pretending he didn't know about the fact that his older brother had never had a girlfriend before. In spite of this, Kyosuke shrugged and said:

'I don't think you need to be an expert in romantic relationships to know that if you're happy you just are and if you're not, then there is a problem and you need to figure out what it is so that you can fix it as quickly as possible.'

Seisuke shook he head and said:

'Aniki, love is not like engineering: there isn't black and white and there aren't always clear-cut solutions to all the problems. In fact, the way most women reason is so freaking twisted that you'd need a freaking GPS system in order to find what's bothering them, let alone finding a way to make them feel better.'

'If you say so,' Kyosuke said.

'It is so,' Seisuke insisted.

'Alright,' Kyosuke accepted, 'what are you going to do?'

'Regarding what?' Seisuke asked looking a little confused.

'Kaori,' he replied.

'I honestly don't know,' Seisuke replied, 'I'll call her again tomorrow to see if she's cooled off enough to want to see me and then I'll just do my best to convince her that I honestly didn't know about you and Kizuna hoping that this time she believes me.'

'And if she doesn't?' Kyosuke asked.

'I don't know,' Seisuke replied shrugging, 'I'll figure another way to get her to forgive me.'

'You really care about her, don't you?' he asked him then.

'I love her,' Seisuke replied, 'which is the reason why I don't want to screw things up with her. I haven't told anyone yet, not even you, but I'm planning on proposing to her the day I graduate.'

'Really?'

'Yeah,' Seisuke said, 'I know I'll still have the residency and it'll take a while before I'm a full fledged doctor but I want to marry Kaori as soon as I can, I just hope that she'll be patient enough to wait until then.'

Kyosuke just nodded not really knowing what else to say.

'Anyway,' Seisuke continued, 'I'm not mad at you anymore so stop looking so worried, okay?'

'You're not?'

'Nah,' Seisuke replied, 'it's too tiring and you know I'm never angry at anyone for too long, least of all you.'

'I'm glad to hear that,' Kyosuke said looking indeed rather relieved.

'So,' Seisuke said smiling a little, 'what did you and Kizuna do?'

Kyosuke sat down onto his younger brother's bed and the two of them spent the best part of an hour talking about the day trip to Tokyo with Seisuke making comments every now and then, mostly saying that it was a good thing Kizuna was the way she was because the last time he'd gone to Tokyo with Kaori the two of them had spent the whole time in between Shibuya and Omotesando raiding as many shops as possible.

'She's just perfect for me,' Kyosuke concluded.

'I'm happy for you Aniki,' Seisuke said honestly, 'it looks like miracles do happen.'

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked.

'Well,' Seisuke started, his eyes glinting in a mischievous way, 'Akito and I were beginning to think that we'd need a miracle in order for you to meet your match. Kizuna had to come all the way from the US but I think she's the only sort of girl who can get anywhere near within your radar.'

'That's probably true,' Kyosuke admitted.

Seisuke was going to speak again when they heard a knock on the door. He got up from his chair and opening the door they saw their cousin Ryoko there carrying a tray with some sandwiches, finger food and a jug of iced tea. The cute way in which the food was arranged meant that she'd probably made it all herself.

'Hungry?' she asked looking hopeful.

'Ravishing,' Kyosuke said getting up to help her with the tray.

'What do you want?' Seisuke asked, eyeing the tasty looking food suspiciously.

'Nothing,' she replied sounding honest, 'it's just that, well…' she stopped and, biting her lower lip, she said, 'I kind of got very bad vibes coming from you two earlier and I thought you were fighting and I didn't like it one bit so I thought that maybe you'd feel better if you got something yummy to eat and…'

'We're not fighting,' Kyosuke stopped her then, seeing the way his brother was looking at him made him add, 'not anymore. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding but everything is fine now so don't worry, okay?'

'Yeah,' Seisuke agreed, 'besides, leave the worrying to Aniki, you know just how good he is at it.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Kyosuke asked him but seeing the knowing expressions on both of them made him wish he hadn't asked. In any case, he took one of the tuna filled sandwiches and started eating it.

'So,' she insisted, 'all is cool now?'

'Yes,' the two brothers replied at the same time.

'Great,' Ryoko replied looking a little fidgety.

'Go on,' Kyosuke said, 'ask what you really wanted to come here to ask.'

She looked a tad too innocent at first then, noticing Seisuke there she frowned and said:

'But I…'

'I know about his date with Kizuna,' Seisuke said, 'if that's what you want to discuss.'

'Oh,' she gasped, 'I see,' she added then, smiling at both of them, she said, 'I take it went well then.'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied simply, hoping that Ryoko wouldn't want him to elaborate. Thankfully the girl seemed to be happy enough with his answer and, instead, she turned round to look at her other cousin and said:

'What about you and Kaori?'

'We'll be fine,' Seisuke replied.

Ryoko just nodded and turned round so that she could leave the room, then the two brothers exchanged a knowing look that made it clear they both agreed that it was very out of character of their cousin to just let things be, without wanting to interfere or use her amazing powers of persuasion in one way or another.

'Come back here,' Kyosuke said.

'What is it?' she asked looking genuinely innocent.

'Come on Ryoko,' Seisuke said, 'it's us, we know you want to do something.'

'No, I don't,' she said sounding unusually serious, 'now you guys are in love for real it's no longer a game so, since you two are older than I am, I'm sure you'll be able to solve any issues you might have with your girlfriends without needing my help. Besides, I need to focus a little more on Akito, with him going pro soon he'll need all the support he can get and I want to be there for him in case he needs me.'

With this, she just walked out of the room leaving a pair of very startled brothers.

'Okay,' Seisuke said after recovering his ability to speak, 'who was that and what has she done to Ryoko?'

Kyosuke just shrugged and the two brothers realised that Ryoko was right: now that they were growing up, life had ceased being a like game. For this reason, they both decided that they would do their best in order to ensure they deserved the faith Ryoko obviously had on their ability to make their relationships work.

A week later, Seisuke had done such a good job at talking to Kaori that the girl, not only had ended up believing him when he said it had just been an honest mistake but, what was even more surprising, she also seemed to forget about wanting to meet his parents and as if that wasn't baffling enough, she had also asked if she could go to the races Kyosuke had arranged for the Golden Arrows in Irohazaka.

'Is not like you're going to race yourself, right?' she had asked him.

'No, I won't,' a surprised Seisuke had replied.

'Then if you don't mind, I'd like to go too.'

Needless to say, he didn't mind at all and he was very happy to see that, at long last, Kaori was beginning to express some mild interest in racing. Seisuke hoped that maybe Kaori would have the same change of heart which had allowed Ryoko to become the kind of supportive girlfriend Seisuke wanted Kaori to be. Then everything would be just perfect, he decided while he parked his car in front of the Kurosawa residence where he waited for Kaori to come out and, knowing that she would be a little late, he stopped the engine.

Ten minutes later, he saw her looking a tad overdressed as usual in a brand new black and white miniskirt, matching shoes and handbag and a short sleeved black silk blouse. She looked ready to go to any of the exclusive clubs in the region rather than to an illegal street races gathering, he observed a little sarcastically.

'Patience,' he told himself, 'give her time.'

Kaori climbed into the car immediately filling it with the perfume she was wearing: Allure by Chanel. He knew not because he was an expert in women's perfumes, but because he'd bought it for her himself after she claimed that it made her feel sexy. As if she needed any perfume for that…

'Hi,' he heard her say.

'Hello,' he replied bending to give her a quick peck on her lips, 'is that a new skirt?'

'Yes,' Kaori replied, 'I got it yesterday because I simply didn't know what to wear for today's…er...'

'Gathering,' Seisuke supplied helpfully, 'we call them gatherings.'

'Whatever,' Kaori said dismissingly, 'I didn't have anything to wear that would be suitable so I got this.'

Seisuke turned the engine back on in order to avoid having to point out that wearing a silk blouse and high heels wasn't suitable either. Still, she was making an effort so he decided to forget about it and just drive the short distance which separated the district of Maebashi where the Kurosawa lived from the Golden Arrows official meeting place: the car park at the bottom of Mt Akagi.

In spite of the fact that it wasn't seven o'clock yet, he saw that everyone was already there making him the last one to arrive which wasn't a very good thing considering that, in theory, he was the Golden Arrows second-in-command. At any rate, he parked the car and, after climbing out of it, he went to get Kaori's door open too knowing that this would make her happy. It did and she smiled at him when she said:

'Thanks.'

'No problem,' he said returning the grin. While they covered the few metres which separated them from the group, Seisuke observed that things were still a little tense meaning that some people, namely Junya and Kei, still felt a bit weird about the fact that their leader and the only girl in the team were now together. He also noticed that Akito and Ryoko were missing from the picture.

'Hey,' he greeted everyone.

'Hi,' Kyosuke replied, 'alright, since we're all here we should get going.'

'Where's Akito?' Seisuke asked him.

'He's not coming with us today,' Kyosuke replied, 'there's been an accident on…'

'Is he hurt?' Seisuke demanded looking very alarmed.

'Not him silly,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'there was an accident on the motorway while they were coming back from Shizuoka, Ryoko called to tell me that they were stuck in traffic so they won't be able to make it.'

'That's too bad,' Seisuke commented sounding relieved, then, he added, 'did he win?'

'Do you even need to ask?' Kazuya replied instead and seeing Seisuke shaking his head, he smirked and said, 'of course he freaking won and if he also wins the next race he'll renew his national championship title.'

'That'd be awesome,' Seisuke said.

Shortly after that all ten members of the Golden Arrows climbed into their cars and started the journey from Maebashi to the Route 120 in Tochigi. Provided they found no traffic, they would arrive at the meeting place at the bottom of the so-called Romantic Road before it split into the two lanes, one uphill and another downhill, which formed the Irohazaka pass.

It was nearly quarter past nine when they got there and they soon started seeing a few people standing here and there behind the guardrails. They also saw a few cars parked just ahead of them and Kyosuke recognised one of them, a white Fifth Generation Eclipse GT, driven by a twenty two year old called Kondo Isamu, who was the leader of the recently formed and still unnamed team that called Irohazaka their home turf.

Seeing the yellow RZ-1, Isamu stopped talking to a girl and, using his hand, he indicated an empty area nearby that, Kyosuke guessed, had been reserved so that the Golden Arrows could park their cars. Kyosuke complied and, turning off the engine, he saw Isamu walking towards him followed by the girl he'd been talking to as well as a handful of other people.

'Welcome to Irohazaka,' the guy said the instant Kyosuke climbed out of the RZ-1.

'Thanks,' he said, 'we're not too late, are we?'

'Not at all,' Isamu replied, 'in fact, we just got here ourselves.'

Kyosuke was happy to confirm his positive first impression he'd got of the guy when he'd first met him in Mt Usui and it seemed that the people there were just as friendly as their team leader. For this reason, he said:

'Do you guys have any special rules?'

'Not really,' Isamu replied, 'as we agreed in Usui, we'll do a downhill race first and then an uphill one. I think we should distribute our people so we can cover both the base and the summit as well as make sure we keep an eye on things along both lanes.'

'That sounds like a good plan,' Kyosuke replied.

'I'll be doing the downhill race,' Isamu announced, 'and Ayumi will do the uphill one.'

They all looked at the girl standing next to Isamu, she wasn't particularly tall but she was rather cute. In a way, Kyosuke thought the girl reminded him a bit of an older version of Ryoko. He probably stared at her for a little too long because Isamu cleared his throat to get Kyosuke's attention back to him and then he said:

'Ayumi is a damn good racer, so don't take her lightly just because she's a girl.'

'Of course not,' Kyosuke replied firmly then, indicating his girlfriend, he said, 'Kizuna is also a very fast racer and everyone in our team knows better than to underestimate anyone because of their gender.'

'I'm glad to hear that,' the girl called Ayumi said smiling at Kizuna.

'Me too,' Isamu agreed then, he said, 'have you decided who is going to race us?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'm going to take the uphill myself,' he saw Ayumi's smile widen a little, 'and he'll be racing you,' he added pointing at Junya who exchanged a long look with Isamu, as if they were assessing each other. Kizuna noticed that Ayumi was also staring at Kyosuke but she tried not to let it bother her.

'Since this is our home turf and we know it well,' Isamu said, 'I think it's only fair if we let you get familiar with the course for a bit so, what do you think if we start the first race at around ten?'

'That sounds perfect,' Kyosuke replied.

Soon everyone was back in their cars, excepting Seisuke and Kaori who had decided to stay at the base while the rest of the Golden Arrows practiced. Seisuke was dying to join them but since Ryoko wasn't there, there was no way he could leave Kaori there on her own and asking her to sit in the car while he drifted his way down the pass was also out of the question. Feeling a little depressed, he sat down onto the RZ-1's hood and while he waited for his team mates to finish their runs trying not to look too miserable.

'I can't believe it,' he heard Kaori say.

'What?' Seisuke asked her sounding mildly interested.

'I can't believe that there are more girls like that tom…like Kizuna-san,' she said quickly correcting herself.

'Well,' Seisuke said patiently, 'racing is still pretty much a men's sport but there are plenty of fast female racers out there. I wouldn't be surprised if this Ayumi turned out to be even faster than our Kizuna.'

'_Our_ Kizuna?'

'You know what I mean,' Seisuke said with his killer grin.

Kaori looked like she didn't but she humoured him by sitting next to him then, he took her hand in his and brought it up to his lips to kiss it. She repaid that by snuggling closer to him and Seisuke decided that, after all, it wasn't such a bad thing to be missing out on driving in Irohazaka, besides, it wasn't as though as the ancient pass would disappear anytime soon so he could come back to drive on it whenever he wanted. As of now, he'd just enjoy Kaori's company feeling grateful that his girlfriend was slowly beginning to compromise.

At exactly ten o'clock, Seisuke was joined by his older brother, Kizuna and Kazuya while the rest of the Golden Arrows had remained either with Junya near the Kegon Falls at Irohazaka's summit or scattered along the twin roads which led there. Just at that moment Kyosuke received a call from his downhill specialist.

'Yes?'

'We're all set up here,' Junya said.

'Good,' Kyosuke said, 'listen, I've seen that part of the downhill course is still wet from yesterday's rain…'

'I've seen that too,' Junya replied, 'I've got new tyres on so don't worry about it.'

'I'm not worried,' Kyosuke reassured him, 'if it's you, I know it'll be an awesome race.'

'I'm glad you think so,' Junya said he then closed the communication and refusing to think too much about the compliment his team leader had just paid him, he placed his phone back into the front pocket of his shirt and adjusted his seatbelt and, checking that Isamu was also ready to go, he waited for one of the locals to begin the countdown while, Kei and Eiji stood nearby ready to broadcast the start with their mobile phones.

Junya forgot about them and about everything else and, focusing on the winding road ahead of him he revved the engine while he heard the Eclipse's V6 roaring right next to him. Hearing that, he knew that the Mitsubishi had to be giving Isamu somewhere close to three hundred brake horse power but since they were racing downhill in an incredibly twisted road, the power of their cars wouldn't make much of a difference.

It was mostly down to the driver's skills and Junya felt fairly confident with his.

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

Flooring the throttle's pedal, the Golden Arrows specialist somehow managed to get in front of Isamu's car while the two of them went down the long straight which led to the first series of hairpins. Junya knew that it was crucial he got there first because overtaking became nearly impossible once they reached that part of the course. Unless Isamu applied the kamikaze-like jumping-over-the-hairpin technique Junya had heard about, he really didn't have anything to worry about.

With the downhill battle underway, Kyosuke saw his girlfriend flapping her denim jacket as if she was too warm and was trying to cool off a bit and, noticing his stare on her, made Kizuna say:

'It's actually rather balmy tonight.'

'It's nearly June,' Kyosuke pointed out.

'Yeah,' Kizuna replied then, seeing that she didn't' need the jacket she took it off and said, 'I think I'll go and leave it in the car.'

'Oh, I'll go with you,' Kaori announced all of a sudden.

Kizuna did a small double take but for the sake of being friendly, she smiled and nodded at her. Soon the two girls walked down the road on their way to Kizuna's Nissan while the two brothers exchanged a surprised but pleased glance with Seisuke thinking that if Kaori was willing to befriend someone as different to her as Kizuna was then she really was making a big effort to integrate into his social circle.

Kaori waited until they were out of the two boys' hearing range to start talking:

'I've noticed a significant improvement,' she said as casually as she could.

'Regarding what?' Kizuna asked cautiously.

'Your attire,' Kaori replied, 'it's very obvious that Ryoko's had a hand on it but I must compliment you.'

Kizuna didn't know what to say for she was too stunned. How could someone sound so patronising?

'Anyway,' Kaori continued, 'now that you and Kyosuke-san are together, I guess we could all go out in a double date, I'm not entirely sure if we'd find something to do that we'd all enjoy but we can at least try.'

'Yeah,' Kizuna finally managed to say.

'If not,' Kaori ventured with a very fake smile, 'we could always go to their place and watch a movie have dinner or something like that. I'm sure that if you suggest it to them they'll be more than happy to oblige.'

Once again, Kizuna was rendered speechless but this time it was because of Kaori's total lack of tact. Did she really think Kizuna was so stupid as to not realise what her real intentions were? Kizuna preferred not to think of the answer to that question, instead, she took a deep breath before she said:

'I don't think that'd be a good idea.'

'Pardon me?' Kaori asked raising her very delicate eyebrows.

'I think,' Kizuna tried again, 'that if Seisuke wants to invite you to their place, he'll do it himself whenever he's ready. It's hardly my place to impose something like that on them or yours for that matter.'

Kaori looked like it was her turn to be stunned however, she recovered amazingly fast:

'You're really as arrogant as I thought.'

'Excuse me?' an astonished Kizuna asked.

'You've been in Kyosuke-san's life for less than five minutes,' Kaori hissed, 'yet you think you have the right to talk to me like that only because somehow you've managed to get one step ahead.'

'What are you talking aobut?' Kizuna asked while fighting to keep her cool.

'Oh come on,' Kaori spat, 'you might have fooled them but you surely aren't fooling me.'

'What…'

'You're aware that the Takahashi family is one of the wealthiest in the region, aren't you?'

'Kaori-san…'

'I'm sorry for ruining your plans,' Kaori said with a nasty smirk, 'but I don't think someone like you can marry into rich…'

SLAP.

Kizuna stared at her own hand in horror while her brain started registering what she'd just done. Kaori was also looking at her as if she too was finding hard to believe what had happened and, an instant later, they both heard, muted as if someone had turned the volume down, as several people rushed towards them. Kizuna turned round slowly and saw that one of them was Kyosuke who looked absolutely horrified.

'Kizuna…' he started saying.

Something in his tone made Kizuna panic and before anyone could do anything to stop her she rushed into her car, turned the engine on and drove away from there as fast as her Nissan could take her.

_To be continued… _


	23. Chapter Twenty Two

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty Two_

If at the base everyone was too stunned to do anything useful, it was nothing compared to how astonished Junya felt seeing the insane way in which Isamu drove his Eclipse: cutting though every one of Irohazaka's hairpins, leaving himself no room for mistakes, sticking to Junya like a leech and putting such a large amount of pressure on him that the S18 driver was beginning to break a sweat.

'Calm down,' Junya told himself.

Forcing himself to think rationally, he figured out that Isamu's strategy was a simple one: the guy would keep pushing him into making a mistake all the way down the winding part of the road and, if that plan failed, he would then overtake him using the straighter portion of the pass, maybe using the wide lanes just before the bridge at the end of the pass. It wasn't a bad idea but Junya knew what to do to counter it.

Clearing yet another right-hand hairpin, Junya smiled when he felt that the S18's tyres had finally reached the optimal temperature and with such perfect grip it made sense to increase a little the pressure on the throttle brining up his self imposed rhythm by another ten percent. He quickly saw the Mitsubishi's headlights getting further away, eventually disappearing once they reached the following hairpin.

That of course didn't last for too long and soon Isamu caught up with him. It didn't matter, Junya thought, because the important bit was that he stuck to his plan, driving down steadily in and keeping his guard up in preparation for the moment when Isamu would try and overtake him. Junya was beginning to consider how he would counter that move when, reaching yet another hairpin, he noticed that once again, he could no longer see the Eclipse's headlights reflected on the rear view mirror.

'What the…'

He glanced quickly to the inside of the corner where he saw Isamu's Eclipse jumping over the hairpin and, without thinking twice about it, Junya too veered further inwards cutting though it hoping that he would be able to make the turn within the impossibly narrow space he had given himself. That made it possible for him to clear the corner while at the same time leaving next to no room for the Eclipse to land properly. The result was that Isamu lost control of his vehicle for the shortest of moments but, unfortunately for Junya, the guy managed to straighten his car just in time to carry on driving well ahead of Junya's Silvia.

Damning himself for having let his guard down, Junya started pursuing the Mitsubishi while he needed to rethink his strategy. Now that he was no longer in the lead, he would have to apply Isamu's own strategy, increasing the speed, hoping that the he would press his opponent into making a mistake. Junya stuck his S18 to the back of the Eclipse for nearly seven hairpins when it occurred to him that perhaps he didn't need to wait.

Getting closer yet, Junya was about to brush the Eclipse's rear bumper with the front one of his Silvia when he remembered a conversation he'd had with Kyosuke just after the race at the Centre. The Golden Arrows leader, after the stunt Junya had pulled on Akito, had warned him against using such dirty tactics saying that while they were more or less allowed and often used in the professional world, in street racing such moves were highly unadvisable if not downright dangerous.

Not only because of the risk of provoking a serious accident, Kyosuke had told him, but also because even the friendliest of racers could potentially get very upset if he saw his every day car damaged because of it. That, Kyosuke had claimed, could trigger a fight between the two teams and as everyone in the Golden Arrows knew, there was nothing Kyosuke Takahashi loathed more than violence in any shape or form.

'Damn it,' Junya complained feeling rather frustrated.

Forcing himself to increase the gap by a handful of centimetres, Junya decided to adopt a different strategy and instead of pressuring Isamu into making a mistake, he'd do the opposite by making him think that he wasn't going to attack at all thus giving him a false sense of security which, hopefully, would make him lower his guard as the race went on. This should make it easier for Junya to overtake him at some point during the final sector of the Irohazaka course.

Meanwhile, from the spot they had picked to monitor the race, both Masato and Izawa were surprised to see the Nismo tuned Nissan chasing after the white Eclipse, considering that Eiji and Kei had just reported that Junya was still on the lead. Masato tried to get as much of the race as possible recorded into his mobile phone's memory.

'How did that guy pass him?' Izawa asked.

'Don't you remember what Kyosuke-san told us?' Masato asked him back and seeing Izawa shaking his head, he explained, 'some racers can use a very advanced but totally crazy technique which makes it possible to jump over the hairpins. He also said that the first racers known for applying this trick were Akito's father and some guy called Kogashiwa.'

'Oh wow,' Izawa gasped looking suitably impressed.

'I'm sure that Kondo guy has just done that to Junya,' Masato said.

'I don't know you,' Izawa said with an amused smirk, 'but I'm dying to see what Junya does next.'

Masato nodded his agreement and then he turned round to see where Yuta was.

The guy was nearby sitting crossed legged onto the ground while he stared at the dark sky totally oblivious to what was going on around him.

'What is he doing?' he heard Izawa asking.

'Trust me,' Masato replied, 'you don't want to know.'

'Oh, I think I do,' Izawa countered with a grin.

'Alright,' Masato conceded, 'he's trying to get in touch with UFOs,' then seeing Izawa's incredulous look, he added, 'he claims that if he concentrates enough, the aliens will intercept his brainwaves and will visit him.'

'Wow,' Izawa gasped then something made him as, 'has he always been like that?'

'Yes,' Masato replied, 'but he's a nice guy and he's not a bad racer either, if his mind stays on Planet Earth for long enough.'

'I know he's good,' Izawa confirmed remembering his dogfight with him at the Centre.

'Anyway,' Masato said, 'let's see what Junya does.'

A few hairpins down below, Junya was having more trouble keeping up with Isamu than he'd anticipated and soon enough he needed to increase his rhythm by another ten percent driving so close to his and his car's limits that he knew he wouldn't have much to work with when it'd be time to overtake Isamu. Not liking it one bit, he tried to see if he had any other options when he saw something which made him smirk.

'No way,' he muttered.

Trying to take a closer look at the way Isamu was currently driving, Junya soon realise that something must have gone wrong during the jump and the Eclipse was no longer stable. While this issue wasn't too relevant here at the hairpins, Junya knew that it would definitely become a problem once they left them behind and they went on to race on the straighter, and faster, part of the course.

With this new piece of information, Junya reworked his strategy deciding to gamble everything in one single attack and when a handful of minutes later they finally left behind the winding part of the road, Junya decreased his rhythm by five per cent noticing that, just as he'd predicted, Isamu was having a lot of trouble keeping his car steady. He then drove behind it for a few more metres and just as they got to the final straight before the bridge, Junya veered towards the right, pressed the accelerator and in one clean manoeuvre, he levelled his Silvia with the Eclipse before he crossed right ahead of it.

'Just a little more,' Junya muttered.

He drove his S18 onto the bridge from where he saw the finish line. Junya knew well that damaged car or not, Isamu was probably going to do his best to pass him using the last few metres they had left before the end of the race so, pushing his car to its limits, Junya made sure Isamu never had a chance and a few seconds later, he crossed the finish line claiming the first win of the evening for the Golden Arrows.

Unfortunately for him, everyone down at the base was otherwise preoccupied and most of them didn't even notice the instant both cars finished the race. In fact, they only realised that the race was over when both Isamu and Junya stopped their cars right next to them. Then, the girl called Ayumi and a few of the other locals went to talk to Isamu to figure out what had gone wrong. Isamu meanwhile climbed out of his car so that he could try and figure out how badly damaged it was.

'What happened?' Ayumi asked him.

'I think I've screwed the suspension,' the guy replied.

'How?' she asked him.

'That guy,' Isamu replied pointing at Junya who was now getting out of his Silvia, 'made me jump too early and that made miss the landing spot. It wasn't his fault though: I was just too impatient to get ahead.'

'Is he that good?' Ayumi asked him.

'He is,' Isamu replied.

'Well,' one of the people there, a man in his late twenties said, 'they're also in a lot of trouble.'

'What do you mean?' Isamu asked.

'We don't know what happened,' Ayumi explained, 'but the two girls who came with them had a fight and one of them took off with that 350Z. What's worse is that the guy I was supposed to race has gone after her and now we have no idea if the race is still on or what. We all thought we'd wait for you to come back…'

Isamu just nodded while he and the rest of his friends watched what happened within the Golden Arrows.

A few metres from there, Junya was fuming with fury because, not only the commotion caused by the girls had ruined his moment of glory, but also because Kyosuke had committed the unforgivable sin of abandoning his team half way through a battle to go after Kizuna and while Kazuya did his best to calm his cousin down, Seisuke was too busy trying to get his girlfriend to tell him what happened to defend his older brother's choice.

'Kaori,' he insisted, 'I simply refuse to believe Kizuna would hit you just like that.'

'I've told you,' she said, 'she's crazy! I was only commenting on her clothes and then she did what you saw.'

'She's not crazy,' Seisuke countered, 'Kizuna's…'

'STOP DEFENDING HER!' Kaori cried, '_I_ AM YOUR GIRLFRIEND, _YOU_ SHOULD DEFEND _ME_!'

With this, she turned round with a enraged huff and went to climb into the white RZ-1 slamming the door shut and leaving a startled Seisuke behind. He watched her feeling powerless, confused and very, very tired. Meanwhile he heard Junya's furious rant about how a proper team leader would never leave his team behind and complaining about the fact that, after all, girls and races didn't mix at all and that they should have never let a girl join their team. That made Seisuke forget about Kaori and, joining the two cousins, he said:

'Junya, if you have a problem with Aniki, blame me because I'm the one who told him to go after Kizuna.'

'Oh brilliant,' Junya spat sarcastically, 'that makes me feel so much better.'

'Guys,' Kazuya said sighing, 'arguing among ourselves is not going to solve anything.'

'I agree,' Seisuke replied.

'Did you figure out what happened?' Kazuya asked him.

'No,' Seisuke replied looking rather miserable, 'Kaori won't talk to me about it.'

Junya made a nasty noise but remained otherwise quiet.

'Oh well, we have a bigger problem now,' Kazuya said, 'now that Kyosuke's gone we'll need someone to race in his place and since you clearly can't leave Kaori-chan alone, unless we wait for one of the guys up there to drive down, I'm pretty much the only option we have left.'

'I'm really sorry about that,' Seisuke said.

'I'm not,' Kazuya countered honestly, 'I just hope those guys there won't mind the change of plans.'

Meanwhile Kyosuke was driving like a madman down the Route 120 towards the Nikko-Utsunomiya Road hoping that sooner or later he would spot the back of Kizuna's 350Z while trying not to think about the fact that he'd left his team behind in the middle of a gathering he had set up. He knew that he simply wouldn't be able to cope with the guilt on top of the worry which was making him feel sick and for the fourth time, he tried calling Kizuna obtaining the same result: still no answer.

Increasing the pressure on the accelerator, Kyosuke fought hard to calm down enough so that his brain could start giving him the sort of rational input he desperately needed. To begin with and as far as he knew, Kizuna had only been to Tochigi once before and that had been in broad daylight and following Ryoko's indications. Now that it was pitch black and considering the state she was in, there was a very high risk that Kizuna would get lost and end up stranded in the middle of nowhere.

'Don't be stupid,' he told himself off harshly.

Kizuna's Nissan had a top of the line GPS system and he knew that the girl only had to drive down the Route 120 in order to find the main road. From there, it was literally impossible for her not to find her way back to Maebashi which, all things considered, was the most likely choice. Kyosuke forced himself to focus on that scenario ruling out others including the one where Kizuna had crashed her car while driving too fast on an unknown road.

A few minutes later, Kyosuke reached the motorway and racing up the junction lane he started asking the RZ-1's rotary to give him all the speed he knew the heavily tuned sports engine could produce while feeling grateful that at this late hour of the evening the motorway was pretty much deserted. Because of this, he got to Maebashi within just over an hour, less than half the time it normally took and he only slowed down when, getting out of the motorway, he had to drive along the streets of the city's outskirts.

There, he tried calling Kizuna once again.

Still not getting an answer, he drove his Mazda first to the first of the series of places where he hoped he would find Kizuna: the pass at Mt Akagi. He thought of the time when Kizuna had been upset because of those girls from college and, seeing how she'd chosen to drive up the mountain to calm down, he decided that this time she would probably do the same.

This made him think of the reason why Kizuna had driven off and for the first time, Kyosuke wondered what had happened between the two girls. He knew that Kizuna and Kaori were as different from each other as two people could get and that it was very unlikely they would ever become the best of friends but he would have never dreamt that Kizuna would physically attack Kaori.

By the time he reached Mt Akagi's base, he still had no idea of what could have been the trigger of such unpleasant incident. If anything, he only felt even more confused. Deciding that it was useless to waste his energies in trying to come up with an answer, he focused them back onto trying to find Kizuna and driving up Mt Akagi's pass, he started looking out for her Nissan feeling increasingly frustrated when he couldn't see it anywhere. He even went slower than he'd ever driven along that road just in case the car was hidden somewhere in the shadows but he soon gave up when, reaching the summit, he still had not found her.

Turning round, he drove down the pass, this time travelling significantly faster towards the MIT parking lot. There, he climbed out of the car and making his way into the campus garden, he started looking around.

'KIZUNA!' he shouted, 'KIZUNA, WHERE ARE YOU?'

Soon enough, he saw a member of the security with a doberman on a lead coming towards him.

'Who are you?' the guy asked while he tried to keep the dog away from Kyosuke.

He then produced his student ID and said:

'I'm a second year student and I'm looking for a first year called Kizuna Ethridge. She's this tall, dark blonde and is wearing a denim jacket, have you seen anyone like that around here?'

'No,' the guy answered.

'Are you sure?' Kyosuke insisted.

'No,' the guy replied, 'I'm sorry. Do you want us to contact the police?'

'No,' he hurried to reply, 'I'll just keep looking.'

'Alright,' the guy said, 'but don't shout around here, it's nearly one o'clock in the morning and the dorms aren't that far away.'

'I'm sorry,' Kyosuke apologised with a small bow.

He saw the security guard and the dog walking away and deciding that Kizuna wasn't there after all, he went to the only place he had left in his very short list: the apartment block near the Arakawa Hospital. If she wasn't there, he simply didn't know where else to look, Kyosuke thought feeling a brand new wave of desolation. Less than five minutes later, he parked his car outside the place where Kizuna lived and was about to climb out of the car when his phone told him that he had a new text message. With trembling hands he took the phone out of the front pocket of his trousers and, checking his inbox, he saw Kizuna's name.

'I'm sorry for leaving so suddenly,' she had written, 'I need to be alone for a while but I'll call you soon.'

Nothing else.

Kyosuke felt that he'd just been punched in his stomach and felt grateful that he was sitting on the bucket seat of his car where he could lean on it trying to keep on breathing. Kizuna had asked him to leave her alone. He found himself no longer able to keep all the negative thoughts out of his mind and soon he started considering all the worst case scenarios. What if Kizuna had second thoughts about their relationship? What would he do if she wanted to break up with him? He thought he'd go crazy if she did.

Right then, his phone started ringing and, thinking it was Kizuna, he nearly dropped it in his haste to answer it. As it turned out, it wasn't his girlfriend as he hoped but, rather, his younger brother sounding nearly as worried as he felt:

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'did you find her?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied with a small voice, 'and I don't think she wants me to find her.'

Seisuke said nothing to that.

'Did Kaori tell you what happened?' Kyosuke asked him instead.

'No,' Seisuke replied darkly, 'Aniki, we're all heading home as we speak.'

'What happened to the race?' Kyosuke asked surprising himself that he could bring himself to care.

'Don't worry,' Seisuke reported, 'Kazuya raced in your place and he managed to beat that Ayumi girl, it was a very close call but he still got another win for us.'

'That's good,' Kyosuke said flatly.

'Yeah,' Seisuke said, 'listen, Junya's really mad at you for leaving like that and he said that the next time we meet up he wants to discuss about having girls in the team. I told him that…'

'Seisuke,' he interrupted him, 'let's not talk about this now, I'm…I'm probably going to go home now, I'll see you there.'

'Sure,' Seisuke said.

Kyosuke pressed the button to finish the call and, just then, he saw that he had a new text message. Once again he rushed to see if it was Kizuna's telling him that after all she wanted to see him but, yet again, he felt disappointed when he saw that the message was Akito's. In it, he asked him to call him as soon as they got back home because there was something very important he needed to tell him. Kyosuke let out a long sigh and for the briefest of moments, he seriously considered pretending that he hadn't seen the message.

No, that would be really unfair to Akito.

Pressing the button to place the call, he waited until his best friend answered the phone.

'Hi!' the younger guy answered, 'you're back from Irohazaka?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke said trying to sound normal.

'Ah, cool,' Akito said, 'listen, there's something I'd like you to see, are you and Seisuke free right now?'

'Now?' Kyosuke repeated frowning a bit.

'Yes,' Akito replied then, he added, 'we need to get to Lake Akina before four thirty but…'

'Wait,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'what are you talking about?'

'Oh,' Akito laughed softly, 'you'll see! It's a surprise.'

'Akito….'

'Please,' he begged, 'let's meet up at my grandfather's shop at four o'clock sharp. Don't be late!'

With this, he just hanged up leaving Kyosuke with no option to refuse. Not that he felt like thinking about anything right now but, he simply couldn't help but to feel curious about what it was that Akito wanted him and Seisuke to see so desperately as to make them go up Mt Akina in the wee hours of the morning. Remembering that he also needed to warn Seisuke, he pressed the speed-dial button to call his younger brother.

'Did you find her?' he answered.

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'listen, where are you now?'

'We're half way home,' Seisuke replied, 'why?'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'the instant you drop Kaori home, I want you to meet me at the petrol station just before the entry to the motorway that goes to Shibukawa. Do you think you can make it there before half past three?'

'Of course,' Seisuke said, 'Aniki what's…'

'I'll explain it to you later,' Kyosuke cut him short.

With this, he hanged up the phone too.

At exactly four o'clock in the morning, both RZ-1s were driving down the narrow street where Bunta Fujiwara had his legendary tofu shop and they had barely stopped outside when they saw both Akito and his father walking out of it, each carrying one of the big boxes used for the tofu. Both Takahashi brothers climbed out of their cars while the two Fujiwara loaded the tofu into the trunk of the ancient Subaru Impreza.

'Get back into your cars, quickly,' Akito asked the moment he closed the boot.

'Where are we…' Kyosuke started.

'Not now boys,' Takumi ordered, 'we need to leave or we'll be late.'

Faced with this, they had no option but to comply and while they walked back into their cars, they saw both Akito and his father climbing into the Impreza. They had barely turned the two rotaries on when they saw the Subaru taking off, and if they found it difficult to keep up with it while they travelled towards the main road, it was nothing when compared to how hard it was to stay on its tail while Akito's father drove it up Mt Akina's pass.

'He's carrying the tofu, isn't he?' Seisuke complained to no one in particular.

At such high speed, all three cars reached the summit less than five minutes later and at exactly quarter past four in the morning, the two RZ-1s and the Impreza were parked at the small car park by Lake Akina. All three teenagers stepped out of their cars while Takumi, saying that he was tired and wanted to sleep, remained inside the Subaru.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said a tad impatiently, 'what are we doing here?'

'In a minute,' Akito said.

Just then, they heard the roaring sound of more than one engine coming towards them. Kyosuke and Seisuke exchanged a confused glance which became astonishment when they saw three identical blue fifth generation Subaru Legacy 2.5GT. Kyosuke saw that all three cars were the BT5 hatchback version Subaru had started producing in 2012 and before he could start asking any questions, the three cars stopped there right in front of them.

'Okay,' Akito said walking towards the three BT5s.

Seisuke and Kyosuke followed him and, soon enough, they saw three guys climbing out of the three Subaru, all of them appearing to be around twenty-ish. One of them had painfully white hair cut very short and was medium sized, the other two were a little taller and they both had brown long-ish hair. It was one of those two who greeted Akito as if he knew him:

'Hi there,' he said.

'Hello,' Akito said, 'and thanks for coming.'

'No worries,' the guy said, 'so, it was true, you _do_ know the Takahashi brothers.'

'Of course I do,' a grinning Akito said.

'Akito,' Kyosuke intervened, 'who are these people?'

'Kyosuke, Seisuke,' Akito said, 'please meet Arata Shuji,' he said pointing at the one who had spoken, 'and his friends Noda Shigeru,' that was the one with white hair, 'and Yamato Tatsuya, they're all come from Ota and I would like to formally ask you to let them join the Golden Arrows.'

_To be continued…_


	24. Chapter Twenty Three

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty Three_

If it wasn't because Akito never ever joked when it came to anything vaguely related to racing, Kyosuke would have probably burst out into a fit of hysterical laughter because, if there was something he really didn't need to deal with in that precise moment was evaluating any potential new members for his team.

'Let me get this straight,' Seisuke calmly said, 'you guys want to join us?'

'Not really,' the guy called Shuji replied, 'but this kid here said that you're recruiting.'

'Can you please excuse us for a minute?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Sure,' Shuji replied.

Kyosuke then signalled for Akito and Seisuke to follow him just far enough to be out of hearing range. The two brothers were about to ask what the heck was going on in there when Akito stopped them and said:

'Guys, you need to see them driving: they really are amazing, their coordination is superb, so good that to be honest I've only seen that level of synchronisation when you two drive together. We've been lucky that…'

'Wait a minute,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'when did you meet those guys?'

'Officially,' Akito replied, 'a couple of nights ago. But I've seen them two or three times while I was helping with the deliveries. I know it probably doesn't mean much because I was driving the 86 with my father onboard but last week all three of them managed to keep up with me while driving downhill.'

'Really?' Seisuke said looking incredulous.

'Yeah,' Akito nodded, 'they're really good and it's taken me a few tries before I managed to stop them so that I could talk to them. They're friendly enough though…'

'Akito,' Kyosuke felt the need to say, 'it's okay this time because you were with your father but it's not a good idea to start talking to random strangers, you know that, right?'

'Of course I do,' Akito said, 'but even my father said they weren't bad so I just had to stop them.'

'Your father said that?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Yes,' Akito replied, 'which is why I had to talk to them.'

'You told them you knew us and that we were still recruiting,' Kyosuke said.

'Yeah,' Akito confirmed now looking a little confused, 'you still are trying to find new people, aren't you?'

'Well,' Kyosuke said, 'to be honest, I think that ten people are more than enough but…'

'Ah,' Akito gasped interrupting him, 'I'm sorry, I didn't know that, I'll…'

'…but,' Kyosuke continued, 'if they're really that good, I should definitely take a look at their driving.'

'You'll do that?' Akito asked looking happy again.

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied with what had to be his first smile in hours, 'they seem to have the Fujiwara stamp of approval so, how can I say no?'

'Cool!' Akito exclaimed.

'I'm rather curious too,' Seisuke commented and he too was beginning to feel a little less depressed.

Both Takahashi brothers followed Akito back to where the three Subaru drivers were feeling grateful that by focusing on them they both could somehow forget about their problems, if only for a few minutes. They also found that the friendly way in which the three guys were talking to each other was a pretty good sign.

'Sorry to keep you waiting,' Kyosuke said to them.

'No worries,' Shuji said.

'Those BT5s,' Kyosuke started, indicating the three Subaru, 'they were very rare, weren't they?'

'You can say it as it was,' Tatsuya intervened, 'a failed attempt at making the Legacy more appealing to a younger public. As you know, that didn't work out very well so Subaru stopped producing them last year.'

'You know your car well,' Seisuke commented.

'We know its designers even better,' Shuji countered and, seeing the two siblings' confused looks, he explained, 'my father and Tatsuya's work together in the design department of Subaru in their headquarters in Ota, I also work there but right now I'm only an apprentice. I'm hoping that one day I'll take over my father.'

'That's impressive,' Kyosuke said.

'Not really,' Shuji said shrugging, 'but it has its perks, one of them is that we're never exactly short on parts for our cars but it also means that our old men would skin us alive if we ever wanted to buy something like those two babies you have there,' he added pointing at the RZ-1s.

'Don't get us wrong,' Tatsuya added, 'we love our rides: they're compact, easy to drive and have a decent enough engine, they also have an excellent transmission and the four wheel drive is great to drive on the snowy roads during winter, not to mention the fact that ours were pretty much tailor-made for us.'

Paying a closer look at the three blue cars, Kyosuke noticed that while all three of them were pretty much identical, they did all have several elements which made them slightly different, be it wider fenders, an air intake or aerodynamic part applied here and there, the radiator grills, all which rendered each car unique. In addition to that, he also noticed two small white hiragana characters on the lower section of the rear window of each car spelling the name of the car's owner:

SHUJI, TATSU and SHIGE.

Kyosuke could only guess in which way the three guys had also personalised the rest of the car and, all of a sudden, he felt like popping the bonnet open so that he could find out. Since he clearly couldn't do that, he settled for exchanging a glance with his younger brother, seeing that Seisuke was on his same page too.

'Alright,' the Golden Arrows leader said, 'it's quite late so we don't really have enough time to do things properly but, if you want, you're welcome to join us this afternoon at the Takahashi Motorsports Centre for a spin.'

'Sounds cool,' Shuji replied.

'I take you guys know where the Centre is, right?' Seisuke asked them.

'We do,' Tatsuya confirmed.

'Good,' Kyosuke said, 'we'll be there after lunch, come whenever you want.'

'We will,' Shuji replied and, handing him his card, he said, 'here's my number, just in case.'

Kyosuke took it. On it, it had the Fuji Heavy Industries Pleiades logo on one side, on the other, it said Subaru. Written underneath, he could see the kanji spelling Arata Shuji with the job title: Assistant Designer. That and the fact that he had had business cards printed out for him made Kyosuke think that Shuji had probably been very modest when he'd said that his father was just working for the design department. He also made a mental note to check on the Who is Who in Motorsports guide they had in the Centre to see who was Subaru's current Head of Design, he would bet his RZ-1 that his surname would either be Arata or Yamato.

'Guys,' Akito said taking Kyosuke out of his reverie, 'I need to go now, I'll see you all at the Centre, right?'

'Sure,' Kyosuke replied.

The five people there saw that the reason why Akito was in such a hurry to leave was because Takumi had probably grown tired of waiting and had just re-started the GC8's engine. Kyosuke smiled when he saw Akito running towards the car and, a few seconds later, the old Subaru took off at the usual insane speed.

'Wow,' Shuji gasped.

'Amazing, isn't it?' Seisuke asked.

The three Subaru drivers nodded at the same time.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'we should go too, do you mind if we follow you down the pass?'

'Of course not,' Shuji said.

'Try and keep up with us,' Tatsuya challenged and, predictably, Seisuke chuckled and said:

'We'll do our best.'

Soon enough, the five of them climbed into their cars and a couple of seconds later, they were all driving out of the car park. Since Summer was only three weeks away and it was nearly five o'clock in the morning, the sky was losing its darkness, turning lighter as the sun started raising. For this reason and observing as much as he could of the three BT5s while they drove down Mt Akina's pass, Kyosuke could clearly see the reason why Akito had been so positively impressed by their driving.

It was astonishingly precise.

None of the three did anything spectacular or flashy but just the way they went around each corner, without any hesitation; they all had the kind of security which could only come from a perfect knowledge of one's car as well as many hours of training and that made Kyosuke wonder how such three fine drivers had managed to stay off his radar for such a long time and by the time they made it all the way down to the base, Kyosuke had made his mind up: he'd do whatever it took to get them into his team.

A few minutes later, the two Takahashi brothers parked their car into their massive garage and, climbing out of them, they closed the doors and deciding that if they went back into the house they wouldn't be able to talk, they took a seat onto the short flight of steps which led to the connection door. There, Seisuke said:

'What do you think?'

'About those three?' Kyosuke asked, seeing his brother nod, he added, 'they're as good as Akito said.'

'So you want them in the team?'

'Yes, I do,' Kyosuke replied, 'what about you?'

'I do too,' Seisuke said, 'but the way things are now, well…'

'I know,' Kyosuke stopped him but it was too late, as a tidal wave, all the memories of what had happened the previous evening came back to him and a brand new anguished sensation invaded him. Instinctively, he went to check his phone to see if Kizuna had contacted him but, as expected, she hadn't.

'Aniki…'

'We should go to bed,' Kyosuke said getting up all of a sudden.

'Aniki,' Seisuke tried again, 'I don't know what happened with the girls and while I didn't think it was a good idea pressing Kaori into giving me an explanation last night, I'll surely get one from her soon. I know that Kizuna would never attack anyone unprovoked and…'

'I know that too,' Kyosuke said sitting back down, 'she probably had a good reason to do what she did but I didn't. I shouldn't have left the gathering just like that, I feel like I've let everyone down now.'

'No you haven't,' Seisuke countered, 'I told you last night: you did the right thing.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke said, 'tell that to Junya and the rest.'

'Screw Junya,' Seisuke said harshly, 'he's a girlfriendless loser who can't even begin to understand the reason why it was so important that you caught up with Kizuna.'

'But I didn't,' Kyosuke pointed out miserably.

'That's besides the point,' Seisuke countered, 'the thing is, you needed to get to her and you followed your heart. Anyone who knows you as well as I do knows just how extraordinary that is. I felt very proud of you.'

'Really?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'last night was the first time I've ever seen you doing something spontaneous in your whole life and, just now, with those three guys, you're also using your instinct instead of your brain. I think we can all thank Kizuna for that. Aniki, let's face it, she's already changed you and I think it's for the better.'

'I know,' Kyosuke said.

He wanted to say so much more, including the fact that he was terrified that Kizuna would now want to break up with him but, in spite of how much he'd changed because of her, he still could not bring himself to open up that much, not even if the one he was talking to was his own brother. For this reason, he just said:

'We'll both need to talk to our girlfriends later so, let's go to bed now, okay?'

'Sure,' Seisuke said then, as if he had an afterthought, he added, 'we'll be okay, with them, won't we?'

'I hope so,' Kyosuke said a little half-heartedly.

The two brothers finally made it into their home and, a few minutes later, they both got in bed with Seisuke falling asleep as quickly as he usually did, Kyosuke on the other hand had a lot of trouble getting his brain to shut down and it wasn't until nearly seven o'clock in the morning that he finally managed to get some sleep.

Less than two hours later his phone woke him up with the characteristic beep telling Kyosuke he had a new message. Taking the phone from the top of his bedside table, he scrolled to his inbox and saw that the message was from Kizuna. His heart racing with trepidation, he pressed the button so he could read it.

'_Can you meet me at the entrance of the MIT's library at ten? We need to talk.'_

Without closing the message, he just dropped the phone onto his bed while he leant against back onto his pillow. In his mind, he kept repeating to himself the last four words of Kizuna's text message and, even though Seisuke was right and he was hardly an expert in terms of relationships, he knew enough to know that when a girl said those four words was never a good thing. Closing his eyes, Kyosuke let out a long sigh.

He then toyed with the idea of going back to sleep, pretend that she'd never sent the message and then show up at her apartment as if the previous twenty four hours had never existed. He could also try and get Kizuna to forget about what had happened with Kaori and maybe take her out for dinner or go for a long drive which would take them both as far away from Maebashi as possible, leaving all their troubles behind...

'Don't be stupid,' he told himself.

Jumping out of bed, he dropped his phone onto the ground but, too distraught to think about that, he just padded towards his closet, grabbing the first pair of jeans he found. He also took a fresh t-shirt and a shirt which he put on leaving it unbuttoned. He then passed his hand through his bleached spikes deciding that he didn't really have the time to groom them properly and, picking his phone back up from the floor, he also grabbed his wallet, the keys to the RZ-1 and walked out of his room before he would run out of courage.

Kyosuke arrived at the MIT campus, which being a Sunday was devoid of students, and got to the entrance of its library with over twenty minutes to spare. As expected, Kizuna also got there shortly after and while she made her way along the path which crossed the campus lawn, he took his time to observe her noticing that she was still wearing the same clothes she'd been wearing the previous evening and, judging by her pale expression, he could tell that she had slept even less than he did, if she'd slept at all, that was.

'Hi,' he said to her.

He then saw her taking something from her backpack, it was an A4 sized envelope which she gave to him using her two hands while she bent down in a deep, apologising bow and with trembling voice, she said:

'I'm very sorry for what happened last night.'

'What is this?' Kyosuke managed to ask her.

'Please, I can't have them anymore.'

Kyosuke took the envelope which hadn't been sealed. Opening it quickly, he saw the two rectangular decals with the Golden Arrows name printed on them. His confounded brain quickly realised what this meant, Kizuna was quitting the team and, very likely, she wanted to quit being his girlfriend too. This made him say:

'I can't accept this.'

'Kyosuke,' Kizuna said standing up and looking at him with her grey eyes full of pain, 'please…'

'I can't,' Kyosuke insisted, 'look, why don't you just tell me what happened last night?'

'It doesn't matter,' Kizuna said, 'I lost it and I…'

'It does matter,' Kyosuke interrupted her, 'look, I know you and Kaori aren't the best of friends but I need to know what happened so that I can do something to help you, if she insulted you or something I…'

'Kyosuke,' she stopped him, 'it doesn't matter. I lost it and I caused a scene right in front of another team, I can't stay in the Golden Arrows after that and…' she paused and, taking a deep breath, she said, 'and I also think it's better if we don't see each other again.'

That made him feel as if someone had just kicked him hard where no man wants to be kicked.

'Why?' he somehow managed to ask with such an angst-filled voice that it made Kizuna wince.

'It makes sense,' was her very surprising answer, 'I've been thinking about it and I've realised that someone like me doesn't belong with someone like you and you know it, if you think about it rationally you should…'

'STOP IT,' he finally shouted.

Kizuna's eyes widened in fear and astonishment for she'd never heard him raising his voice so much before.

'Kyosuke…'

'I'm sick and tired of being rational,' he complained harshly, 'you want to quit the team and for us to break up yet you won't tell me what Kaori said that made you so upset and now you're telling me to be rational about it. How can I be reasonable about something you won't let me understand? How can I be reasonable when I love you as much as I do?'

Kizuna stared at Kyosuke who looked as shocked as she felt having heard him saying what he'd just said. She was on the verge of giving in when she remembered everything she'd decided when she'd been driving around for most of the night. She knew that she was an idiot for not jumping into his arms telling him that she loved him too but she also knew that if she didn't put an end to the this situation now, she would only hurt him more when, after her degree, she'd leave him to go back to the US. Also, Kaori had made a good point last night: the two of them came from two different worlds and Kizuna knew she'd never fit in his.

'Please,' she heard him say, 'please Kizuna don't break up with me.'

Closing her eyes, she felt a couple of tears rolling down her cheeks, she then looked at him and said:

'I'm sorry.'

Kyosuke looked like she'd just slapped him and that was more than she could cope with. She was going to turn round to leave when she felt Kyosuke's arms around her, hugging her tightly against him. He was shaking as badly as she was and Kizuna had to use every bit of her willpower not to hug him back.

'Kyosuke…'

'Please,' he begged her, 'please don't do this.'

She then pulled herself away from him and said:

'I have to, I'm really sorry, Kyosuke I…'

He then let her go all of a sudden.

'You won't change your mind, will you?'

'No,' Kizuna replied with a small voice.

She felt the change in him almost physically and cringed seeing the cold expression appearing in his face.

'Alright,' he forced himself to say, 'I accept that but I will never accept your resignation from the team.'

'What?' Kizuna asked him incredulously.

'As your team leader,' he said coolly, 'unless you give me a good reason, I will not allow you to quit the team so, until you tell me what happened with Kaori, these are yours,' he added pushing the envelope containing the Golden Arrows stickers back into her hands. He then stared at her hard expecting her to talk.

She didn't.

Instead, she just stared at the slightly crumbled envelope and, still crying, she said:

'You can't do this.'

'Yes I can,' he countered dryly, 'I'm your team leader, as such, I have every right to turn down your resignation if you don't give me a good enough reason to back it up so, like I said, you're still in the team. We're having a meeting in five hours at the Centre and I expect you to be there along with everyone else.'

With this and before his resolution could crumble, Kyosuke left her standing there. He felt like the biggest bastard in the planet but he really didn't know what else to do. She refused to tell him what had happened and she wanted to break up with him but he'd be damned if he didn't at least try to push her into telling him the truth, even if that meant pulling rank on her and being obnoxious. While he literally ran back to his car, he tried to forget the fact that he was probably making her suffer as much as he was suffering himself.

At around quarter past two in the afternoon, a heartbroken Kyosuke arrived at the Centre, parking his RZ-1 next to Seisuke's. He then found his younger brother waiting for him in the reception area, drinking some coffee while he read the latest issue of Scientific American sitting on one of the black leather armchairs.

'Hi,' Seisuke said putting the magazine down.

Kyosuke noticed that his smile wasn't as bright as it usually was.

'Did you talk to Kaori?' he asked him dropping himself onto one of the armchair right next to his.

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied, 'she's still holding onto her version of the facts saying that Kizuna attacked her when she tried to compliment her attire. I know she's lying Aniki,' he said sounding rather miserable, 'but I don't know what else to do, I'm even thinking of telling her that we'll break up if she doesn't tell me the truth.'

'Don't do that,' Kyosuke said a little more harshly than he intended.

'What about you and Kizuna, did you…'

'She's broken up with me,' Kyosuke admitted, 'but I don't want to talk about it.'

Seisuke was going to protest when Akito walked into the reception dressed in the tracksuit he used when he was in the gym. He also had one of the white and yellow towels from the Centre's shower rooms hanging around his neck which collected the drops of water that were falling from his long bangs. Seeing his two best friends there, he first smiled then, noticing their sombre expressions, he frowned a little and said:

'What's the matter?'

'Nothing,' the two brothers said all too quickly.

'Right,' Akito said with a large dose of disbelief, 'didn't you win the races last night?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied.

'Then?' Akito asked, 'why the long faces?'

The two Takahashi brothers looked at each other and for a short while they considered not telling Akito about what had happened with their girlfriends but, seeing as the guy was their best friend, they decided to explain everything to him, if only to see if he would have any useful input which would help them make sense of an absurd situation. Predictably though, Akito was even more at a loss about what to do than them.

'Don't tell Ryoko,' Kyosuke told him.

'Why not?' Akito asked.

'Because we don't want to worry her,' Seisuke explained.

'Besides,' Kyosuke said, 'she'd want to do something to help and that's the last thing we need now.'

'Let us handle this our way, okay?' Seisuke asked.

'Alright,' Akito accepted, 'I won't tell her anything but if she asks me a direct question about it I'll tell her the truth. Also because you two know well that it's impossible to keep stuff like that from her for too long.'

'That's true,' Kyosuke agreed.

'You should try and brighten up though,' Akito advised, 'if you look so gloomy at home she'll figure out what's wrong and then there won't be anything which will stop her from intervening, you know that.'

'Alright,' Seisuke stopped him, 'we get it: we'll be all smiles around her.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke said and to prove their point, he tried faking a smile, failing spectacularly.

'You guys are so doomed,' Akito sentenced shaking his head. He wanted to say something else when he caught a glimpse of the clock at the reception's desk, 'crap, I'll have to hurry or I'll be late for my study session with Mum. What did you think about Arata-san and his two friends? They're awesome, aren't they?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke confirmed, 'we'll be holding a meeting shortly to discuss their admission into the team.'

'Brilliant!' Akito exclaimed happily.

With this, the young racer went to find his father so that the two Fujiwara could go home but the two brothers didn't have the time to even think of their problems because at that precise moment they heard the receptionist announcing that the three Subaru they had been waiting for had just parked in the car park.

'Let's go,' Kyosuke said.

They went to meet up with the three guys finding that they were already out of their cars. Both brothers saw that Shigeru's hair looked even whiter with the sunlight reflected on it and that the guy seemed to be fiddling with a small transponder-like antenna planted on top of his car. Kyosuke saw that Tatsuya was checking on something inside Shigeru's car while Shuji just watched them work.

'There,' they heard Tatsuya say, 'the signal's perfect now.'

'Hey,' Kyosuke said announcing his and Seisuke's presence, 'what are you guys doing?'

'Shige had problems with his radio this morning,' Shuji explained, 'it looks like the antenna was slightly off.'

'Radio?' Seisuke asked.

'Yes,' Shuji replied while Tatsuya closed Shige's car and the two of them joined their friend, 'don't you guys have radios installed in your cars?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'we usually use our phones to talk to each other.'

'We used to do the same,' Tatsuya explained, 'but radios are a lot better: they're free and providing we don't get too far from each other the reception is even better than that of a phone, not to mention the fact that we can use different channels to have one-to-one conversations in case one of us wants to stay out of it.'

'That's a clever solution,' Seisuke admitted.

'Yeah,' Shuji said, 'you guys should try it, it really is an inexpensive investment and it'll save you a lot of money on phone calls. We use a specialised dealer from Kanna, they're reasonably priced and work fast.'

'I'll be grateful if you give us their address,' Kyosuke said.

'Sure,' Shuji said smiling at him, he then eyed the full sized track and said, 'I heard about this Centre but, to be honest, the facilities here are even better than I expected, I'd love to take my car for a spin around that.'

'Feel free,' Seisuke said, 'it's not booked for another hour so, until then you guys can use it.'

'Really?' Tatsuya asked.

'Of course,' Kyosuke said, 'in fact, I was hoping you'd want to have a go.'

'Alright,' Tatsuya said, 'Shige?'

The guy just nodded and without saying anything, he walked to his car, climbing into it and turning it on. That made the two brothers exchange a confused look and Tatsuya, noticing that, frowned a little and said:

'He's not being rude or anything, it's just that he doesn't like talking in front of strangers.'

'Ah,' Kyosuke said, 'it's okay.'

Soon enough, they watched from their usual spot behind the pitlane's wall as the three BT5s cruised down the main straight of the track and as they drifted thought the first corner, they made the two brothers gasp with the high level of coordination shown by the three drivers. Kyosuke wondered if there was any way for them to use the radios to achieve such perfection but quickly dismissed the idea because, even if one of them could impart instructions over the radio to the others, their reaction time would have to be superhuman in order to coordinate their manoeuvres smoothly enough to produce such impressive results.

'Oh,' they heard a sarcastic voice from behind them, 'look who's here, Kazuya remind me again who he is…'

'Junya,' Kazuya said flatly, 'that's not funny.'

Kyosuke was going to thank him but, turning round, he saw that together with the two cousins, there were most of the members of the team, Masato, Izawa, Kei, Yuta and, more importantly, Kizuna who looked even rougher than she'd done a few hours before, making it obvious that she'd been crying her eyes out. It was probably that which had spared her from Junya's scorn but that didn't make Kyosuke feel any better. He did his best to ignore his own pain and, instead, he returned his attention to the other seven members and said:

'Where's Eiji?'

'He can't make it today,' Masato replied.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, he the added, 'I would have liked him to be here for this but,' he stopped speaking and, bowing in front of everyone, surprising even Seisuke in the process, he said, 'I'm very sorry for what I did last night. I shouldn't have left you guys in the middle of a battle to tend to my own personal interests.'

He heard, and ignored, Kizuna's gasp.

'In addition to that,' he continued still refusing to get up, 'I would also like to ask you all a favour.'

'Aniki…'

'Kyosuke,' Kazuya said speaking with a very serious tone, 'you don't need to do this.'

'Kyosuke-san,' Masato intervened, 'please get up, I…this is too horrible to watch.'

'That's right,' Izawa agreed sounding very distraught, 'we all know that…we know you had your reasons.'

'Aniki…' Seisuke tried again, this time he went to pull his older brother back up and, to everyone's relief, even Junya's, he did, then, the future doctor said, 'I'm speaking on everyone's behalf, what you did last night was necessary so we won't hold it against you, besides, Kazuya won your race too so, all is fine, right?'

Everyone nodded.

'Thanks guys,' Kyosuke said trying to avoid looking at Kizuna because he was too afraid of seeing her face, instead, he glanced at the track where the three Subaru were still racing each other and said, 'everyone, I'd like you to pay attention to those three cars and tell me what you guys think about their driving style.'

'They're good,' Junya commented fairly after observing them for a while.

'I'm glad you think so,' Kyosuke said, 'because I'd like to invite them to join us.'

'Really?' Masato asked him.

'Yes,' Kyosuke said, 'we saw them driving on Mt Akina and they're even better there so, what do you say?'

'I'm all for it,' was Izawa's predictable reply.

'They have my vote too,' Masato agreed, 'and I'm sure Eiji will want them in too, the more the merrier.'

'That's my line,' Seisuke said smiling at him.

'Fine by me too,' Kei said while Yuta just put his thumps up to express his approval.

'Kazuya?' Kyosuke asked.

'You know I'll always have your back,' Kazuya said, he then glanced at his cousin and said, 'what about you?'

Junya looked like he was thinking of his answer.

'Just tell me one thing,' he asked Kyosuke who nodded once, 'none of those three are girls, are they?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied trying to keep an even tone of voice.

'In that case,' Junya said, 'I guess it's alright.'

Kyosuke nodded feeling annoyed but mostly grateful that, for once, Junya had decided to be more or less reasonable. Then, taking a deep breath, he prepared himself mentally to look at Kizuna to ask for her vote.

'What do you think?' he asked her.

'Me?' she asked him instead.

'Yeah,' Seisuke decided to help his brother, 'you have a say too, regardless.'

Kyosuke glared at him for a fraction of a second before returning his attention to Kizuna, doing his best to ignore how miserable she looked. He thought he'd go crazy with guilt when she finally nodded and said:

'They have my vote too.'

Feeling immensely relieved that he could now stop looking at her, he went to signal the three cars to get back in at the following lap while he wished that his tactics would soon pay off for, if they didn't, he didn't think he could continue having Kizuna around without wanting to get her in his arms and to never let her go. The arrival of the three Subaru at the pitlane provided him with the distraction he needed and, as soon as the three drivers climbed out of their cars he went to tell them about their decision when, for some reason, he saw Shigeru doing a double take and, before anyone could try and figure out what was happening, the whole group also saw Yuta closing the distance between the two then, talking to Shigeru, he said:

'I didn't know you were a street racer too!'

'You never asked,' Shigeru replied smiling softly.

'That's uber-cool!' Yuta exclaimed happily, 'we're going to be together here too.'

'You two know each other?' Kyosuke asked rather pointlessly since it was obvious they did.

'Of course,' a grinning Yuta replied nevertheless, 'Shige-chan is a member of my UFO watching group!'

_To be continued…_


	25. Chapter Twenty Four

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty Four_

Before anyone, namely Kazuya and Seisuke, could even think of a way to make fun of Yuta or Shigeru, Kyosuke cleared his throat louder than necessary so that everyone's attention would focus on him instead.

'Alright,' he said talking to the three Subaru drivers, 'it seems like everyone here agrees that you three should become part of our team but I would now like to ask you if, all things considered, you want that too.'

'We do,' Shuji replied without hesitation.

'We'd be honoured to part of the Golden Arrows,' Tatsuya added.

Shigeru was already too busy talking in hushed tones to Yuta. For once, Kyosuke decided to let it go.

'Okay,' he said instead, 'in that case, we'll have a training session in Mt Akagi on Wednesday at ten pm, please do your best to join us. We've also been invited to a gathering in Mt Myogi with a couple of other teams, the provisional date for that meet is on the second Saturday of June and we'll get together at eight.'

'Okay,' Shuji replied, 'we'll be there.'

'Good,' Kyosuke said, 'now, since that's all I had to say to you today and I've got a few things I need to take care of, all of you can either stay here and use the facilities or just go, to those who choose to leave, I'll see you all on Wednesday, usual place, ten pm. Don't be late.'

'Yes,' a few of them said at the same time.

'Kyo…'

'Arata-san,' Kyosuke said ignoring Kizuna's attempt to speak to him, 'if you want I can give you some of our stickers now, this way you three will have plenty of time to put them on before the Mt Myogi's gathering.'

'Sure,' Shuji replied, 'but please call us by our first names, it'd be awkward if you don't.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke replied he then glanced at his brother and asked him, 'are you going to stay around?'

'Yes,' Seisuke replied.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'because there's something I want to discuss with you.'

'Sure,' Seisuke said.

With this, Kyosuke walked away from the group, followed by Shuji and Tatsuya. Shigeru refused to interrupt his conversation with Yuta, about some debate regarding the different species of aliens known to mankind, and for this reason he stayed right where he was. Kizuna saw Shuji apologising to Kyosuke for that and she heard their leader saying that it was alright and that he was happy that Yuta and Shigeru were good friends.

'Come with me,' Kizuna heard Seisuke telling her.

She looked at him and, frowning a little, she said:

'But I…'

'Please,' Seisuke insisted.

Kizuna noticed that everyone in the team was pretty much occupied either leaving or deciding which part of the Centre they wanted to use and, not wanting to draw any of their attention to her, she decided not to argue with Seisuke. With one last glance at Kyosuke's back as he walked further away, she sighed and said:

'Alright.'

The two of them walked in silence in the opposite direction, towards the two hangar-like buildings in which the vehicles were kept and, the instant they were out of sight and hearing range, Seisuke turned and asked:

'What happened last night?'

'Did Kyosuke follow me?' Kizuna asked him instead.

'I asked before,' Seisuke pointed out, he looked like he was doing a superhuman effort to stay calm.

'It doesn't matter what happened,' Kizuna said.

'Oh really?' Seisuke asked her sarcastically, 'I…'

'Look,' Kizuna said, 'I know you've got every reason to be mad at me for slapping your girlfriend like I did.'

'What?' Seisuke asked her looking confused.

'I'm really sorry,' Kizuna replied, 'I shouldn't…'

'I wasn't talking about that,' Seisuke said, 'listen, I know you wouldn't lose it without a reason, I have no idea of what Kaori said to you but I know my girlfriend well enough to know that she's excellent at pissing people off. What I was referring to is the fact that for some reason you've decided to break up with Aniki.'

'I…'

'Why did you do that?' Seisuke demanded.

'I…'

'Because,' he continued without giving her time to reply, 'you probably don't know what you're doing to him.'

'Seisuke…'

'Up until now,' he carried on, 'he's always been super-rational with everything and everyone, very often including his own family but then you showed up and, I don't know why, he's started opening up a little, he's even been trying to make jokes and stuff…'

'Seisuke, please…'

'…he's let you get closer to him than anyone I've ever met in my whole life and I think that he was finally beginning to relax and be himself for a change,' Seisuke explained sounding really upset, 'if you leave him now, you're going to ruin it all and he's going to go back to his iceberg. Do you want that?'

'No,' Kizuna replied, her voice shaking with unshed tears.

'Then why are you breaking up with him?' he insisted, 'don't you care about him anymore?'

'That's not the problem,' Kizuna nearly cried, 'it's…it's…it's complicated.'

'Really?' Seisuke asked, 'what's so complicated about it?'

'I need to go,' Kizuna said, 'I…'

'Just tell me one more thing,' Seisuke said refusing to let her go, 'is any of this Kaori's fault? Because if…'

'No,' Kizuna interrupted him, 'Kaori-san might have been the trigger but it would have happened eventually, it's like I said to your brother, we're just too different and we would have made each other miserable.'

'You know what?' Seisuke said, 'I think it's bullshit.'

'Wha…'

'Kizuna,' Seisuke said, 'I seriously don't understand anything of what you're saying but there's one thing which is crystal clear to me: you're just as scared of being happy as Aniki is and that's what's making you run away from him. I'm honestly disappointed to see you acting like that. I thought that you were stronger.'

With that and without letting her answer to it, Seisuke just left her standing there feeling a lot like the idiot she knew she was. Seisuke was only partially right, she was running away but it wasn't because she was afraid of being happy, she knew well that with someone like Kyosuke she would definitely be happy, the question here was, could she make him just as happy? She didn't think so.

Swallowing her tears, Kizuna decided to go home.

The following Wednesday, after having successfully avoided Kizuna during the three days of lessons at the MIT as well as having kept himself too busy by fixing everything which could be fixed either around the house, the Centre or his RZ-1, Kyosuke found that he was getting increasingly nervous as the time set for the training session got closer. To the point that even his cousin Ryoko noticed that something was wrong.

'Hey,' she complained, 'can you please quit switching channels?'

'What?' Kyosuke asked pressing the button on the remote for the umpteenth time.

'What are you doing home anyway?' Ryoko asked him, 'shouldn't you be out with Kizuna-san?'

'Er…'

'Aniki,' Seisuke intervened from across the couch were he was busy reading a book, 'we should get going.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied, he then dropped the remote which was promptly grabbed by Ryoko who said:

'You're strange.'

'No I'm not,' Kyosuke said too quickly.

'He's just lovesick,' Seisuke commented, 'you should know all about it baby cousin.'

'Ha-ha, very funny,' Ryoko said flatly, 'at any rate, try and calm down a bit or you'll have a heart attack.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied.

The two brothers left the living room and on their way to the garage, Seisuke said:

'Aniki, Ryoko's right, if you don't calm down…'

'I'm not nervous,' Kyosuke said tensely, 'I'm fine.'

Seisuke raised his eyebrows in disbelief but, for the sake of not starting an argument, he decided to let it go. Instead, he walked to his car and climbed on it seeing that if he didn't hurry up, Kyosuke would probably go, leaving him behind. Turning on the engine, Seisuke hoped his older brother's not-so-clever plan would work soon.

Driving ahead, Kyosuke's mind was too occupied trying to see if there was anything he could do to speed up his strategy. He knew that he was playing a dangerous game in which he had everything to lose and very little to win, he also knew that Seisuke was right and that he should take a much more active approach.

'As if,' he complained miserably.

He really wanted to come up with some grand gesture which would whisk Kizuna away and would force her to admit that she loved him as much as he did love her. He wanted to be every bit as proactive and passionate as his brother and as sweet and caring as Akito was with Ryoko but, alas, he just couldn't do it.

Kyosuke knew that even if it was an ill conceived plan at best, a suicidal move at worst, what he was doing was the only thing he knew how to do and if it didn't work out the way he wanted, there would be nothing else left to do. He'd have to give up and realise that he'd somehow lost Kizuna after just one single date.

A few minutes later, the two RZ-1s parked at their usual spot in the car park at the bottom of Mt Akagi and, shortly afterwards, they saw three Subaru driving in. Kyosuke was very impressed to see that the three guys were so punctual and felt even happier when Shuji opened the trunk of his BT5 showing him its contents.

'You've got them?' Kyosuke asked walking closer to the Legacy.

'Yes,' Shuji replied, 'I was surprised to hear you wanted to install them yourself but, I guess it's alright.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke said, 'it'll be good practice,' he said taking one of the parcels from the trunk. Seisuke also took one and the two brothers spent a few moments looking at them, 'they're the latest model, aren't they?'

'That's right,' Shuji confirmed.

'The guys will go crazy with this,' Seisuke said smiling.

'I hope so,' Kyosuke said.

'You sure are a generous guy,' Tatsuya commented, 'those things are rather expensive.'

'I know,' Kyosuke replied, 'but it's okay, I see it as an investment, to be honest, I'm ashamed I didn't think of having radios installed in the cars before you showed up. It'll be so much easier to talk to each other.'

'Yep,' Seisuke agreed he then glanced at Shigeru who seemed to be lost in his world, 'hey, do you copy?'

The white haired guy didn't even seem to hear him.

'Don't mind him,' Tatsuya advised, 'he sometimes…well...he's…'

'Don't tell me,' Seisuke said, 'he's trying to get in touch with UFOs.'

'How did you know?' Shuji asked him.

'Yuta does the same,' Kyosuke explained, 'we're still getting used to that but…'

Right at that moment they heard several other cars coming towards them and, very soon, Kazuya, Junya, Masato, Izawa and Yuta himself were there. Masato told them that Eiji and Kei were on their way too so the only one who hadn't shown up yet was Kizuna but Kyosuke tried to convince himself that it was still early.

'She's late,' Seisuke decided when, fifteen minutes later and after Eiji and Kei had arrived, there was no sign of the half-American girl. Kyosuke checked his watch and he saw that it was ten minutes past ten, 'Aniki…'

'Never mind,' he said, 'if she's late I…'

He hadn't even finished the sentence when he heard the characteristic sound of the 350Z's V6 and, for one long and painful moment, he thought his heart would either stop or beat itself to oblivion. It took every bit of his self-control to calm down enough so that his features would show none of the raging emotions he felt.

'Finally,' he somehow heard Junya say.

'Leave her alone,' Kazuya advised stealing a quick glance at Kyosuke.

The Golden Arrows leader just waited for Kizuna to park her car and, once she climbed out of it, he said:

'You're late.'

He surprised both himself and her with the coldness of his own voice.

'I'm sorry,' she said meaning it, 'I had a problem with the car.'

Kyosuke wanted to ask her what was wrong with it and rush to see if there was anything he could do to help her, instead, he bit his tongue hard and held himself in place trying to look as unconcerned as possible.

'Okay,' he said once he was sure he was in control, 'now we're all here, I'd like to tell you something.'

'Aniki's got a surprise for you,' Seisuke announced.

'That's right,' Kyosuke said, 'our three new members have given me an idea. Up until now, to talk to each other, we were using our mobile phones, which wasn't always ideal given that it's not free and the reception isn't always perfect. Instead of using this system, from now on we'll all have radios installed in our cars.'

'Really?' Kazuya asked him looking rather excited.

'Yes,' Kyosuke said offering a tiny smile.

'That's not all,' Seisuke said.

'What else is there?' Junya asked sounding interested.

'This,' Kyosuke said pointing at Shuji's BT5's trunk which was still open. There, they all saw ten identical parcels and then the leader added, 'I ordered them a couple of days ago, each of you should take one now.'

'How much do they cost?' Izawa asked him frowning in worry.

'Nothing,' Kyosuke explained, 'I'd like you to consider this a very late welcome-to-the-team gift from me.'

'Wow,' Eiji said with his usual antics, 'now, this is what I call a grand gesture.'

Kyosuke silently thought that it was ironic Eiji would say something like that to him.

'Kyosuke-san,' Masato said, 'are you sure you want us to have them, I mean, our agreement was only temporary and…well…'

'I don't know you,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'but I've kind of grown used to having you guys in the team so, what do you say if we forget about our agreement and, from now on, just be a thirteen member team?'

'That sounds really cool,' Masato said.

'Indeed,' Eiji agreed.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'since there's no time like the present, if you guys want to start installing them now, I'll be happy to help. I know most of you can do it on your own but if you need any tools or anything, just ask.'

Everyone nodded and, soon enough, armed with a box each, they all started working on their cars, installing the radio they had picked while they all tried to figure out the best way to get them wired. It was a good thing they all had a really good knowledge of the electronic system in their cars, for this reason, a few of them had their radios up and running within less than half an hour.

'Kyosuke,' he heard Kizuna's voice while he helped Yuta with his S17.

'Yes?' he asked without looking at her.

'I…we need to talk,' she said.

Kyosuke stopped for a second then, reassuming his work, he said:

'In a minute.'

He heard her walking away and he needed to force himself not to turn round to follow her with his eyes. He was grateful that the electronics of Yuta's S17, being one of the oldest cars of the lot, were fairly simple and in just under ten minutes, the UFO watcher had his radio installed too. Kyosuke then left him doing the first tests to go and find Kizuna who, unlike the rest of the members, didn't seem to be interested in her radio.

'What do you want?' he asked her.

She flinched hearing his detached tone.

'Kyosuke…'

'Aren't you going to install it?' Kyosuke asked pointing at the box containing the radio.

'About that,' she said, 'I just…I don't think I should.'

'Why not?' Kyosuke asked her, his tone getting icier yet.

'Kyosuke,' she complained, 'I can't do this!'

The Golden Arrows leader glanced around to see if anyone had heard her raising her voice, thankfully everyone was busy working so they weren't paying attention. Just in case, he lowered his tone and ordered:

'Keep your voice down.'

That seemed to make her feel worse and he hated himself for that.

'Kyosuke,' she said, her voice just above a whisper, 'you need to let me quit the team, please, I…'

'Alright,' he said, 'give me a good reason and I'll take those stickers off myself.'

'We can't be in the same team together,' she reasoned, 'not after what's happened.'

He shook his head looking as if that was inconsequential to him.

'Please, Kyosuke…'

'No,' he said, 'that's not a good reason. Anything else you want to tell me?'

'Yes,' she said now looking slightly angry, 'I'm going to ask the MIT administration to see if I can have my room back at the dorm, I can't stay at the apartment if we…'

'That's none of my business,' Kyosuke said coldly, 'your moving into that apartment was something you arranged with my cousin. If you want to move out now, you'll have to tell her yourself so leave me out of it.'

'You can't be serious,' Kizuna wheezed

'Do I look like I'm laughing?' he asked deadpan.

'Ryoko-chan will never accept it,' she complained, 'and you know it.'

'Again,' he said coolly, 'that's none of my business. Now, get that radio installed as soon as possible, if you don't mind I'd like this training session to start today also, let it be the last time you show up late to one of our meetings without a good reason, I don't want people to think I'm giving you any special treatment just because we went out once.'

With that and feeling like the biggest bastard in the whole universe, Kyosuke walked away doing his best to ignore the fact that Kizuna looked like she'd just been slapped. He felt so horrible about it that he thought he'd throw up out of sheer tension and, once again, it took every bit of his willpower not to just run back to her to embrace her in a bone-crushing hug. Instead, he went to lock himself inside his car and wait there.

'Hey Seisuke,' Kazuya said while the future doctor worked on his RZ-1, 'what's the deal with those two?'

'Beats me,' he replied honestly, 'Aniki says he's got a plan but, I have no idea what he's doing.'

'As usual, right?' Kazuya asked him smiling sympathetically.

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied.

'Listen,' Kazuya said, 'I've had an idea: now that we have radios, we will need call-signs, won't we?'

Seisuke raised his eyebrows in admiration and, nodding a couple of times, he lowered his voice and said:

'Let's brainstorm.'

A few days later, on the evening of the gathering at Mt Myogi, Kizuna was standing in front of her fridge trying to decide what to have for dinner. She knew that her stomach wasn't going to accept much, in fact she had eaten so little in the past two weeks that she was beginning to visibly lose weight, so much so that even the brand new clothes she had bought with Ryoko were getting too big for her. Tiredly, she grabbed a strawberry yoghurt and tried to see if her body would be okay with something as light as that.

Kizuna knew that the only person to blame for her situation was herself. Kyosuke had only stuck to his end of the deal by acting with her in more or less the same way he acted with the rest of the team. He'd even gone though impressive lengths so that they wouldn't need to see or speak to each other outside any of the team-related activities and, for this reason, she hadn't seen him once around the MIT since their break up.

'It's what you wanted, isn't it?' she asked herself while she attacked the yoghurt with her spoon.

No, she replied to her own question. She had hoped that with time, she would manage to forget about her feelings for Kyosuke and that, eventually, she could carry on with her life as if she had never met him but, for that plan to work, she needed to stay away from him and never see him again. Instead, Kyosuke insisted on keeping her in the team, forcing her to see him all too frequently and that was a living nightmare for her.

How could he be so cold to her? How could he act as if they had never confessed their feelings to each other, as if he hadn't so openly declared that he loved her? Kizuna knew the answer to those questions too for Kyosuke had warned her about that side of his personality almost from day one. He was an extremely rational being and she guessed that acting like that wasn't difficult for him. If only it was so easy for her.

Taking a look at the yoghurt, she started feeling a little sick so she decided to throw it away.

Instead, she went to her closet and tried to get something to wear which would make her feel a bit better and, after the longest time, she picked her trusty pair of black combat trousers and a yellow strappy top. She then grabbed a light jumper a couple of shades darker than the top and after putting it on, she combed her hair with the wooden comb Ryoko had bought her and following a whim, she decided to leave it loose.

Less than five minutes later, she was onboard her Z33 and went to turn its engine on confident that, this time, it wouldn't fail her for, after what had happened two weeks before, she had worked on it until it run as smoothly as a hot knife through soft butter. Maybe her love life was a disaster but, at the very least, her car was something which she could always fix no matter what and this was something she was grateful for.

Meanwhile, a couple of kilometres away from her place, Kyosuke was having his own problems.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said while they walked towards their own rides, 'I know you don't want to hear this but…'

'That's right,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'I don't.'

'Aniki…'

'One more night,' he said almost pleadingly, 'if nothing happens tonight, I swear I'll be all ears, okay?'

'Alright,' Seisuke accepted.

'Also,' Kyosuke said quickly, 'thanks for not inviting Kaori to the gathering tonight, I...'

'Don't worry about it,' Seisuke replied.

He couldn't add anything else because, right there, waiting for them at the garage, they saw Akito and Ryoko who, as usual, were talking in whispers, saying silly, sweet, little nothings to each other. Kyosuke had never found that particularly annoying but, today, after so many days of overexerting his self-control, he found it very hard to be patient with the two lovebirds. For this reason, he cleared his throat and said:

'We're leaving.'

Akito did a double take while Ryoko looked first a little startled, she then frowned and said:

'There's no need to be so harsh, Kyosuke.'

He chose to ignore her and that made the girl raise one eyebrow. She was going to speak again when Akito grabbed her hand and, silently, told her to let it go. He also dragged her towards Seisuke's car while he said:

'Please go with him, I'll try and talk to Kyosuke, okay?'

'But…'

'Please,' Akito begged her making the sort of face she couldn't resist.

'Alright,' Ryoko said smiling at him, 'but only because I trust you.'

'Guys,' Seisuke intervened, 'can we all get into the cars before I get cavities?'

Ryoko showed him her tongue while Akito rushed to get into Kyosuke's car. He hated riding separate from his girlfriend and that gave him yet another reason why he couldn't wait to have his own ride. At any rate, he knew he couldn't waste time thinking about that and, the instant both cars were on the move, he said:

'Kyosuke…'

'Akito,' the Golden Arrows leader said, 'please don't start you too.'

'I'm not,' he promised, 'I just wanted to tell you that Ryoko doesn't buy that you're lovesick anymore. She also said that she's going to talk to Kizuna-san because she's already turned down two of her offers to go out, even though she insists she didn't even mention anything about going shopping in any of her messages.'

'Akito…'

'Look,' the young racer said, 'I'm not going to say anything because I know you have a plan and I know you're a lot smarter than I am so I just wanted to be sure you're okay because, in all honesty, you're not looking at your best right now. Remember that both of your parents are doctors and they'll get worried too.'

'I know,' Kyosuke assured him.

'Okay,' Akito said, 'also…I have something to tell you but I don't know if…'

'Is it about your license?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Yeah,' Akito replied, 'you know about it already?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke said, 'Uncle Keisuke told us that the Federation called your father this morning saying that they're going to issue a one-event license so that you can take part in one of the upcoming races. That's excellent news Akito, why are you looking so down?'

'Well,' Akito said, 'I'm kind of not going to be able to come to these gatherings for a while.'

'Why not?' Kyosuke asked him then, he answered to his own question, 'you'd get in trouble if you're seen.'

'Yeah,' Akito said, 'it's only temporary,' he assured him, 'until they grant me a full, permanent license.'

'That could take a while,' Kyosuke considered.

'I know,' Akito replied miserably, 'I'm sorry, I wish I could…'

'Akito,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'it's fine. You're doing the right thing, besides, even if you tried to keep coming to the gatherings, I wouldn't let you, not when I know how much you'd risk if you got caught.'

'Thanks,' Akito said, 'I appreciate your understanding.'

'No problem,' Kyosuke said offering him a small smile.

'But I'm serious about this too,' Akito added, 'you need to do something about Kizuna-san, not only because you'd get Ryoko off your case but also because you did look quite happy when things were better with her.'

Kyosuke glanced at Akito through the darkness in his car. The younger guy was just looking his usual relaxed self and, considering how rare it was for Akito to offer his opinion on non-racing related matters, he knew that he probably did look rather miserable, in spite of how hard he pretended that everything was fine.

A short while later, the thirteen members of the Golden Arrows had gathered at their usual meeting place and were already on their way to Mt Myogi when Seisuke sent a text message to everyone reminding them to turn their radios on, also mentioning something about a surprise he and Kazuya had prepared for them.

'Doctor to Awesome One, do you copy?' he said breaking the radio silence.

'Awesome One here,' Kazuya replied, 'I copy you loud and clear Doctor.'

'Doctor?' Kyosuke's voice asked over the radio.

'Yes Leader?' Seisuke replied with nonchalance.

'What's with the weird names?' Junya intervened.

'That must be Smiley,' Kazuya chuckled.

'Yeah,' Seisuke agreed, 'Smiley, this is Doctor, do you like your call-sign?'

'You fuck…'

'Doctor to Smiley, I get static, try again,' Seisuke said enjoying himself enormously.

All thirteen radios cracked with the laughter of several people. Even Kyosuke found himself smiling.

'Alright,' he said, 'this is Leader, I want to ask "Doctor" and the "Awesome One" to explain themselves.'

'Copy that Leader,' Kazuya replied, 'Doctor, do the honours, if you will.'

'With pleasure,' Seisuke replied, 'as you can imagine, I'm Doctor; Kazuya's the self-proclaimed Awesome One; Aniki's our leader so, funnily enough, he's Leader; Junya, you're Smiley just because. Feel grateful, Awesome One wanted to call you something else.'

'Yeah,' Kazuya said, 'do you remember what your mother used to…'

'SHUT UP!' Junya roared over the radio.

'Smiley it is then,' Kazuya said sounding highly amused even over the radio.

'Like I was saying,' Seisuke continued, 'Kei will be EVO Warrior for obvious reasons, Masato is the Professor since that madman is studying to be a teacher, Yuta's Ufoboy and Shige, we know he likes UFO too but he's Snowy because of his hair. Eiji, he's Prince because, let's face it, he likes to act like one.'

'Excellent choice,' was his predictable answer.

'We knew you'd like it,' Kazuya said.

'To finish off,' Seisuke said, 'Shuji is Pencils because that's all he seems to have in his car other than tools and Tatsuya will be called Ninja because he kind of looks like one. Izawa will be called Phoenix because of his miraculous recoveries and, last but not least, Kizuna's call sign is Lady Z, again for obvious reasons.'

'Doctor, aren't you forgetting someone?' Kazuya asked him.

'I was getting there Awesome One,' Seisuke complained, 'I know you aren't an official member but, Akito, once you join us you'll be Speedyboy, you like that?'

'Yeah,' Akito replied sounding like he was smiling while he said that.

'Of course you do,' Kazuya said, 'now everyone remember your call-signs, it took us a long time to figure out which ones suited you best so don't waste our effort.'

Someone, probably Junya, was heard muttering something about how he'd prefer if they used their brain cells for something more productive but, deciding that they were too happy with their latest game to care, Seisuke and Kazuya chose to do a series of random roll-calls to see if everyone remembered their call-signs.

By the time they made it to Mt Myogi's car park, not only everyone had accepted their new IDs but, Kyosuke found them to be a good way to keep himself distracted and, to be fair, he found some of them to be quite funny, especially the one Kazuya and Seisuke had assigned to poor Junya. He, of course, would never tell them that but he made a mental note to find a reason to use Junya's call-sign at least once every time the team met up for whatever reason because thinking about the older guy's face made him smile already.

'You're looking happier,' Ryoko commented once they were all out of their cars.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' Kyosuke said going back to being serious.

He walked away towards where Taro Nakazato and Yasuo Hirota were with the rest of their teams and, while they all followed him there, Ryoko took Akito's hand in hers and giving him a grateful smile, she said:

'Thank you.'

'I didn't do anything,' Akito admitted.

'Of course not,' Ryoko said clearly not believing him. She was going to add something else when there was a small commotion caused by the arrival of a red car she had never seen before. She didn't need to be a car freak like most of her family to know that it was a Mazda RX-8, the last version they had produced of that car before it got replaced by the RZ-1, despite that, the car still looked fairly new.

'What's going on?' she asked Akito.

'No idea,' her boyfriend replied.

The two made their way to the front of the group, getting there just in time to see a girl climbing out of it. Akito thought that she looked like a slightly older version of the girl who owned his heart but he didn't have the time to feel weird about it, instead, he saw her walking towards the Golden Arrows leader and say:

'There you are.'

'Er…' Kyosuke hesitated.

'You know,' the girl commented conversationally, 'I kind of took offence when you left just before our battle but, you see? I'm a nice person so I decided to come all the way down here to give you a second chance.'

'Ayumi-san…'

'However,' she continued, 'if I win the race, I want to get some compensation from you.'

'Wha…'

'If I win,' Ayumi said, 'you'll take me out on a date.'

Everyone held their breath expecting a rotund negative from him when Kyosuke nodded and said:

'Alright, let's race.'

_To be continued…_


	26. Chapter Twenty Five

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty Five_

Kyosuke's acceptance was followed by a surreal silence during which the Golden Arrows leader did his best to avoid looking at Kizuna knowing that his resolution would crumble if he saw her face. Thankfully, Taro Nakazato decided to break the silence and that allowed Kyosuke to focus his attention on him instead.

'Are you seriously going to race her?' the Myogi Devils leader asked him.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied firmly.

'Well,' Taro said, 'after our last meeting in Mt Usui, I was under the impression you were going to race me.'

Everyone, including Ayumi, listened closely to see what happened next.

'You're right,' Kyosuke said, 'but I do owe her a race too, I wonder if it'd be okay if I race her first. After that I can either come back down or you can drive up now and wait for me at the top. Either way works for me.'

'Hang on a second,' Yasuo intervened, 'you're saying that you're going to race twice tonight?'

'Is that a problem?' Kyosuke asked him calmly.

'Absolutely not,' Taro replied with a smile beyond pleased.

Seeing that left Yasuo with no option but to let out a long sigh and say:

'Alright, this is your home turf so you decide.'

'Brilliant,' Taro replied, 'in that case and for convenience, I'll drive up now while we get things ready.'

'Good,' Kyosuke said.

'So,' Ayumi spoke, 'do we have a race or not?'

'We do,' Kyosuke replied.

With all three leaders having reached an agreement, the members of all the three teams started moving, either towards their cars so that they could go up to the strategic points of the course, or to find the best possible place from where to watch the start of the first, unexpected race of the evening. Only a handful of people remained still while they watched Ayumi climbed back in her RX-8 and Kyosuke went to get his RZ-1.

And then Ryoko took a step towards her cousin.

'Wait,' she heard Akito saying. He also grabbed her hand to stop her and, with a gesture of his head, he pointed at Kizuna who, at that precise moment, moved to go and intercept Kyosuke before he got to the car.

'Let's go,' Seisuke said to the young couple.

'But…' Ryoko started.

'We should give them some space,' Akito explained.

With that, he almost dragged her away from where Kyosuke had parked his ride and soon enough, Akito, Ryoko and Seisuke joined Masato and Izawa and the two UFO boys at the spot behind the guardrail that they had picked to watch the start of their leader's race. At the same time, Kizuna managed to get to Kyosuke just as he started opening the driver's side door.

'What are you doing?' she asked him with a pained voice.

'What does it look like?' Kyosuke asked back while still giving her his back.

'Kyosuke…'

Hearing such intense hurt in her voice made his heart cringe and, very slowly, he let go of the handle and turning round, he finally allowed himself to look at her. Her face was ashen and she was on the verge of crying and she looked too thin, as if she hadn't eaten properly in days. He felt a brand new wave of guilt.

'What do you want?' he asked her forcing himself to sound cold.

'You can't race her,' she finally said.

'Why not?' he challenged.

'Why?' she repeated, 'Kyosuke…if she wins…you…you'll have to…'

'So what?' he asked, 'it's got nothing to do with…'

Kyosuke couldn't finish the sentence for, right then, he noticed a couple of tears rolling down her face.

'Kizuna…'

'How can you say that?' she cried taking one step away from him, 'how can you act like this?'

'What else do you want me to do?' Kyosuke asked her tiredly.

'I…' she hesitated, 'I don't know.'

Kyosuke let out a frustrated sigh he then turned round and was going to climb into his car when he felt her hand grabbing one of the sleeves of his shirt. That made him freeze half way too afraid to move or breathe.

'Wait,' he heard her say with an even smaller voice.

Kyosuke waited.

'I'm scared,' she finally confessed.

'Of what?' he asked her softly without turning round.

'Of everything,' she said, 'of you, of me, of what you make me feel…'

'Kizuna…'

'I love you,' she breathed.

She said it so low that Kyosuke thought he had imagined it. For this reason, he turned round and asked:

'What did you just say?'

Kizuna refused to reply to his question and stared down at the ground instead.

'Kizuna,' he whispered, 'look at me.'

Kyosuke saw her shaking her head.

'Please,' he insisted using an even softer tone, 'look at me.'

Very slowly, Kizuna lifted her head and, glancing up, she focused her eyes on his. The amount of pain, fear and hope she saw in them took her breath away, it was so overwhelming that it made her look away again.

'Kizuna,' he said, 'please…'

Glancing back at him, this time she did her best to hold his gaze while she frowned.

'Why are you so stubborn?' she demanded to know, 'it would be so much easier if you just let me go.'

'I can't, he replied, 'because if I do I'll regret it for the rest of my life.'

'What…'

'I love you,' he interrupted her, 'and there's nothing I can do about it.'

'Kyosuke…'

'Look,' he said, 'I can't promise you I'll always make you happy but I assure you that I'll do my very best.'

'I know you will,' Kizuna replied, 'but what about you? How can someone like me make you happy?'

'What?' Kyosuke asked her sounding bewildered.

'I'm…'

'Kizuna,' he said, 'you don't get it, do you?' she looked confused, 'you don't need to do anything to make me happy; the only thing I need is to know that you're with me and that you love me as much as I love you.'

'Kyosuke…'

'Please let me be part of your life,' he implored her.

Kizuna closed her eyes and for an eternally long and painful moment, Kyosuke thought that she was going to say no when he saw her nodding once. He was going to say something when she looked at him and said:

'Okay, you win, you always win.'

Hearing that made him so happy that he thought his heart would simply explode.

'Thank you,' he somehow managed to say.

'But Kyosuke…'

'Not now,' he said putting one finger onto her lips, 'after this is over, I want to go somewhere and talk.'

'You're still going to race her?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied.

'But…'

'Hey,' he interrupted her getting serious, 'you don't seriously think I'll let her beat me, do you?'

Kizuna shook her head and, Kyosuke smiled briefly before he climbed into his RZ-1, turning the engine on and driving away from her. Only then she realised that if she had thought about it more carefully, she would have seen that it was impossible for that girl to win against Kyosuke and that he had probably accepted the challenge just to make Kizuna jealous. She shook her head again, this time in disbelief, and whispered:

'I'm such an idiot.'

Just then, Kyosuke parked his car right next to the red RX-8 taking a good look at the car for the first time that evening. From what he could see, the SE3P had been upgraded with a RE-Amemiya kit and that its owner knew how to look after it. That, together with what Kazuya had told him about his race with the girl in Irohazaka made Kyosuke decide that Ayumi wasn't a rival he could underestimate.

For this reason, while he waited for one of the members of the Myogi Devils to start the countdown, Kyosuke did his best to forget about a certain half-American girl to focus his attention on the road ahead of him. Mt Myogi wasn't a particularly challenging course when compared to highly technical passes like the one going up Mt Akina or the high-speed, steep climbs one could find in Mt Akagi, however, it still presented a handful of long straights and quite a few corners ready to test the driving skills of whoever raced there.

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

The two Mazda took off at the same time and Kyosuke, doing a very out of character thing, got ahead of Ayumi's RX-8 using the long uphill straight to get as much distance between the two cars as possible, with Kyosuke reaching the first corner nearly a full second before she did. This ruthlessness of his left quite a few people stunned, especially those who knew the Golden Arrows leader well.

'Geez,' some of them said, 'he's racing against a girl…'

Kizuna was going to protest when she saw a very upset looking Ryoko walking towards her followed by Seisuke and Akito, both of them were trying to stop her from doing whatever it was she was about to do.

'Ryoko-chan…' Kizuna started.

'Why didn't you tell me?' Ryoko asked her sounding hurt, 'I thought we were friends…'

'I'm sorry,' Kizuna said, 'I just…'

'Everything's cool now, isn't it?' Seisuke asked Kizuna.

'Yes but…'

'Alright,' Akito interrupted her, he also grabbed Ryoko's hand again and said, 'we should stay out of it.'

'Akito…'

'Baby,' he insisted, 'I get how you're feeling but this is between Kizuna-san and Kyosuke and you know that.'

Ryoko looked like she was trying to find the best way to counter that but, seeing the stubborn look on her boyfriend's face made her decide against it and, glancing once more at Kizuna, she let Akito take her away.

'Wow, that's something you don't see every day,' Kizuna commented.

Seisuke nodded his agreement then looked at her adopting a just-as-planned expression which left Kizuna feeling rather confused but, before she had the time to ask anything, he too went to join the few members of the team who had stayed at the base leaving Kizuna with no option but to follow him too.

Meanwhile, Kyosuke was glad that he'd adopted such an aggressive strategy for, even though he was going at nearly sixty percent of his capabilities, Ayumi was still not as far away as he thought she'd be. In fact, the girl was keeping up a really good rhythm and that, in different circumstances, would have triggered Kyosuke's curiosity and he would have slowed down to see what she was doing with her car.

Alas, he knew that if he did that, he would probably give her too much advantage and he simply could not risk losing this race. For this reason, he increased his pace and therefore the gap between the two Mazda taking care not to push his car or himself beyond the seventy percent mark.

Because of this, when Kyosuke finally reached the summit, he crossed the finish line with only eight seconds of advantage over Ayumi and that made some of the people there wonder whether the girl was really good or, maybe, if they had all overestimated the racing abilities of the Golden Arrows leader.

'You didn't go all out, did you?' she accused him once they were out of their cars.

Kyosuke didn't answer to the question and that made her let out a mirthless chuckle.

'Geez, to think I'm here doing a favour.'

'What?' he asked her.

'Oops,' Ayumi said, this time offering him a genuine smile, 'I wasn't supposed to say that.'

'Ayumi-san?'

'Alright,' she said, 'it'll be our little secret: a person very close to you called me this morning telling me that you'd be here tonight. This person also told me about a certain situation you had with your girlfriend and asked me if I'd be willing to help out. I must say that I surprised myself with my acting skills…'

'I see,' Kyosuke said beginning to shortlist in his mind the very few people he knew were capable of doing something like that, 'so,' he added, 'it was all staged? You never had any intentions of…you know…'

'Oh,' she interrupted him, 'if you had been single, I'd be crazy not to go after someone like you. But you're not and, in the end, all I wanted was for us to have a good race. I thought that by giving you such a good incentive not to lose, you'd give me your best but, unfortunately, it appears I was wrong.'

'No,' Kyosuke said, 'I rarely push myself that much, you're really good and that car of yours is a beauty.'

'Alright,' she said, 'I think I'll humour you. Ah, if things don't work out with your girlfriend, give me a call.'

After such bold statement, Ayumi climbed back into her car, driving away just as Taro Nakazato got there together with a few others, including Kei, Junya and Eiji. All three members of the Golden Arrows looked rather happy to see that their leader had won his race while Kyosuke just tried to get out of his stunned state so that he could think of what he would tell a certain person the instant they had time for a quick chat.

'That was a good race,' Taro commented, 'I hope you didn't get too tired.'

Junya and Kei snorted at the same time.

'I'll be fine,' Kyosuke assured him.

'Alright,' Taro said calmly, 'let me tell you that after your brother defeated me here, I've worked a lot on my car and perfecting my driving skills and that I'm going to go all out so that I don't lose to you too.'

'I also will do my best,' Kyosuke promised.

Taro nodded once and, after that, both racers made it back to their rides. The tension in the environment had grown so much that it literally made the air feel heavier as if everyone had viewed the race between Kyosuke and Ayumi a mere warm up in preparation for the potentially epic showdown between the two team leaders and they simply couldn't wait until the start of the battle.

Kyosuke knew that, on paper, Taro Nakazato had a definitive advantage. Not only he was a dangerous enough rival but he was also on his home course and they were going to race downhill and whereas that wasn't a major issue for Kyosuke, everyone knew that the Golden Arrows leader tended to favour the uphill. In addition to that, Kyosuke was also very curious to see what his opponent had done to his Mitsubishi.

He found out when Taro showed up with his dark blue X-3 and Kyosuke had the chance to take a good look at it. The whole car seemed to have gone though a very profound overhaul in which Taro had added several aerodynamic elements to the car, including an APR Performance spoiler. He wasn't sure from this distance but he had the impression that Taro had mounted Bridgestone semi-slick tyres which meant that the Myogi Devils leader intended to do some heavy drifting. Alright, Kyosuke thought smiling to himself, bring it on!

A few moments later, both X-3 and RZ-1 were lined up and, this time, it was Yasuo Hirota, the leader of the Nagano Alliance who did the countdown for them: 'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

Both cars took off and even before Kyosuke had the time to consider if it was wise to let Taro get ahead of him, he watched while the Mitsubishi pushed its way up the short ramp which led to the downhill proper making Kyosuke realise that the Myogi Devils leader had not been joking: this race was serious business.

Concentrating on the course ahead and already coming up with a strategy, Kyosuke finished the climb and, soon enough, he found himself tailing the dark blue X-3. Meanwhile, a few metres back, the expressions on both Junya's and Kei's faces looked stonier than usual, Eiji noticed that and said with his usual flamboyance:

'It'll be grand. Kyosuke-san always does that, doesn't he?'

'It's different this time,' Kei said, 'isn't it?' he then asked glancing at Junya who just nodded before he made his way back into his Silvia. He turned the radio on calling Kazuya just as they had agreed before the race.

'Kazuya, it's me…'

'Who?' he heard his cousin's voice ask.

'It's Junya, listen…'

'Junya who?' Kazuya asked being obtuse on purpose.

'Come on…'

'Don't tell me you've forgotten your call-sign already?' Kazuya asked him feigning surprise.

'Shut up,' Junya ordered him, 'Kyosuke's off again for his battle against Nakazato and I think he might be in trouble so keep an eye on your sector, okay?' Kazuya didn't reply, 'hey, did you hear that?'

'Loud and clear,' Kazuya said now speaking seriously.

'Good,' Junya replied.

Meanwhile, Kyosuke was following Taro down one of the longest straights of the Mt Myogi pass and, so far, he hadn't even tried to overtake the Mitsubishi knowing that if he did it too soon, Taro would probably overtake him before the end of the race also because Kyosuke noted that his rival's driving had indeed improved dramatically ever since his race against Seisuke, only three months before.

Just as expected, Taro's better knowledge of the course played to his favour and while they entered the left-hander at the end of the straight, Kyosuke followed the X-3 into the corner copying the moment when Taro braked, turned and cleared the turn. Because of this he managed to keep right at the Mitsubishi's tail while they covered another, shorter, straight section of the pass, still refusing to overtake him.

Taro found that to be rather unsettling.

While he'd never actually seen enough of Kyosuke's driving to know for sure, he knew that the guy was a lot better than most drivers of their generation. Taro also knew that the Golden Arrows leader rarely pushed himself to his limits and while he found that a bit annoying, he also believed that he could give him the sort of incentive the guy needed in order to race him seriously. Alas, it seemed like his tactics had not worked.

Lowering the accelerator a tad, he increased the speed just enough to widen the gap between the two cars but as they entered the following corner, Kyosuke had already closed the distance, once again giving Taro the distinct impression that the guy was just toying with him. That made him feel so irritated that he tightened his grasp on the steering wheel in frustration while he kept incrementing the pace, getting dangerously close to his limits.

Behind him, Kyosuke noticed how the way the Mitsubishi was handled was beginning to look a little unstable: its tail wiggled a lot more than it should have while they cleared the corners and it looked like Taro was also having problems keeping it steady at the straights. Kyosuke frowned a bit and, even though it still was too early, he decided it was time to make his move before Taro would lose control of his X-3.

Right at that moment, at the mid-point of the course, Kazuya, Tatsuya and Shuji were watching from one of the corners, with Kazuya using his mobile phone to connect to his GD4's radio. He had left both Tatsuya and Shuji in charge of recording the two cars as they drove down the hill so that he could focus on reporting what he saw to Junya and the rest of the Golden Arrows.

'They're coming,' he heard Shuji saying.

Soon enough, they heard the screeching sounds of the eight tyres as the two cars made it to the wide right hander where they stood. Kazuya was surprised to see that Kyosuke was so close to the Mitsubishi that if anything happened to the X-3, there would be no way for him to avoid a collision. Kazuya had just completed this thought when he saw Kyosuke missing the entry line by veering towards the outside.

'No way,' Tatsuya gasped, his phone shaking in his hand.

Everyone there watched as Kyosuke accelerated brusquely and before Taro had the time to even think of what was going on, he was forced to watch the yellow RZ-1 drifting past him using the outside lane, first levelling with him, then overtaking him just as both cars got to the exit of the corner. That manoeuvre made it clear to everyone the reason why Kyosuke's cornering skills were quickly reaching legendary status.

'That bastard,' Kazuya said with a smile.

Shuji and Tatsuya sent the video feed they'd captured to everyone while Kazuya reported on the radio:

'Awesome One to all Arrows, our Leader is ahead, I repeat, our Leader is ahead.'

'How did that happen?' he heard Junya asking him.

'Smiley, watch the video,' Seisuke was heard saying, judging by his tone of voice, he too was smiling.

Even though most of his team was already celebrating the fact that Kyosuke had managed to overtake Taro, the Golden Arrows leader knew that his work was nowhere near done and he got proof of that when, at the following corner, a furious Taro tried to copy the manoeuvre which had allowed Kyosuke to pass him but, right at that moment, both drivers noticed something which would condition the rest of the race.

It was starting to rain.

In fact, the first big, fat drops of water splashed onto the windscreens of their cars and, soon enough, both racers had to turn the wipers on so that they could continue to see the road. The rain quickly turned into a downpour and Kyosuke found he needed to slow down a lot while he hoped Taro would be wise enough to do the same. It was then when he heard Seisuke's calling him through their radio channel.

'Leader, this is Doctor.'

'Leader here,' Kyosuke replied.

'Hirota and the Devil's second-in-command just got in touch with me,' Seisuke explained, 'they're asking us if we agree and call the gathering off, we've just heard from someone that there's been a typhoon alert.'

'A typhoon?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'what should we do?'

'Alright,' Kysouke said, 'Leader to Arrows, get ready to go home.'

'Copy that,' Seisuke replied on behalf of all the team.

'Lady Z,' Kyosuke added, 'can you wait for me at the base? I won't be long.'

'Of course,' he heard Kizuna saying.

Hearing that and knowing that she was probably safe inside her Nissan made Kyosuke feel relaxed enough to focus his attention back on the race. He noticed that Taro had done the smart thing and both cars were now cruising downhill at less than three quarters the speed they made before, in spite of that, they still were going fast enough and Kyosuke knew that the battle wasn't quite over yet.

With the RZ-1's wipers at full speed, Kyosuke still managed to just about see the road while he covered the last section of the pass. He had been checking the rear view mirror every now and then to verify that the gap between his Mazda and the Mitsubishi stayed consistent and that turned out to be an excellent idea because, as they approached the penultimate turn, he saw that Taro had yet again increased his pace.

Not thinking twice, Kyosuke decided to get his rhythm up as well and that made him go at nearly ninety percent of his capabilities for a short while. By the time they got to the final corner, Kyosuke had managed to increase the gap again. He then pushed his RZ-1 down the last straight of the pass from which he saw that a surprising number of people were still there, waiting to see the end of the race. He knew Kizuna was there too and that gave him the drive he needed to floor the accelerator while he cruised past the finish line.

'Shit!' Taro exclaimed in the Mitsubishi.

He found it impossible to believe that he'd been beaten twice in Myogi and that both times it had been one of the Takahashi brothers. He was grateful that the rain was now falling very heavily for that gave him the excuse to stop just for long enough to make sure the members of his team were all accounted for so that he could send them all on their way home. Taro didn't even wait for Kyosuke to get out of his car and left too.

'Sore loser much?' Seisuke said via radio.

'Not really,' Kyosuke replied, 'to be honest, he's got so good that if you were to race him again, things would probably be very different and, this time, I think you would really have to sweat your win.'

Seisuke didn't say anything to that and, instead, he waited till all six members who were at either the summit or the mid-point of the race got back into the car park and, the minute all thirteen drivers where at the base, with Akito and Ryoko riding with Seisuke to make sure Kyosuke was free to go with Kizuna.

'Leader to Arrows,' he said from the inside of his RZ-1, 'be careful on your way back home, okay?'

'Copy that,' most of them said.

Right then, eleven of the thirteen cars started driving out of the place and, only then, Kyosuke turned his radio off and picked up his mobile phone so that he could call Kizuna and talk to her with that instead.

'Hi,' she said sounding rather shy.

'So,' he said, 'I wasn't expecting this downpour but, if you want…'

'We could go to my place,' Kizuna suggested daringly.

'Are you sure?' Kyosuke asked her holding his breath while he waited for her to say:

'Yes.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'I'll follow you.'

When a long time later Kyosuke parked his car next to Seisuke's, he felt that his brain was overloaded with so many thoughts and so much information and he felt so many different emotions at the same time that he needed to stay seated in his car for a good few minutes in order to start processing everything.

As usual, he started with the easiest: he had won two races in the same gathering and, according to Kizuna, that would probably make his reputation and by default that of the Golden Arrows soar to a whole new level.

Asides from that, Kizuna had definitely changed her mind about their relationship and what had almost happened between them at her apartment was an excellent proof of that. Kyosuke still felt rather warm thinking of how very far the two of them had taken things and he felt immensely grateful that he'd somehow managed to stop before he'd ruin everything by rushing things too much. He knew that Kizuna had looked everything but happy but, after making her see reason, she too agreed that it was way too soon.

That made him remember the conversation which had followed while the two went back to the living room:

'Kizuna,' he said, 'I know you don't want to talk about this but, I need to know something.'

'What is it?' she asked him looking worried.

'What did Kaori tell you that made you lose it so badly?'

'Kyosuke…'

'Please,' he insisted, 'I'm really worried about Seisuke, he knows she's lying to him and that's killing him.'

Kizuna looked even more concerned.

'Look,' Kyosuke said crouching next to her by the small settee, taking her hands in his, 'I don't want him to know this because he really loves Kaori but, if you ask me, I don't think she's the right girl for him but, I also know Seisuke well enough to know that unless he realises this himself, he won't break up with her for good.'

'But,' she objected, 'I thought you were the one who pushed him to get back together with her?'

'I did,' Kyosuke admitted, 'but only because I saw Seisuke feeling down after their break up. I thought that given a second chance she'd change a bit and she'd become the sort of girl Seisuke needs but I was wrong.'

'I see,' Kizuna said still frowning a little.

'What did she tell you?' he pressed on.

'In hindsight,' she replied, 'it's something rather stupid and I don't know why it made me lose it,' she stopped talking to see if Kyosuke was going to speak, he didn't and she finally said, 'she said a girl like me would never marry into riches.'

Kyosuke was so shocked that if he hadn't been grabbing her hands, he would have fallen onto his butt. He let go of them and, getting up, he started pacing up and down the small room. He then stopped and said:

'She's unbelievable.'

'Kyosuke…'

'I can't believe she told you that,' he said sounding even more incredulous.

'I know,' she tried to laugh it off, 'I feel so ashamed for losing it so badly, I just…'

'You took it seriously thought,' Kyosuke interrupted her and without getting confirmation, he added, 'you should know I don't give a toss about that kind of stuff and, for the record, neither do my parents. In fact, my mother would freak out if I introduced her to one of those society princesses. Both of my parents want us to be with whomever we choose regardless of their social standing.'

'I think I know that now,' Kizuna admitted feeling even more idiotic, 'I just…'

'Let's forget about that,' Kyosuke said, 'because we have a much bigger problem here.'

'What is it?' Kizuna asked him.

'If my brother finds out,' he explained, 'he'll go ballistic on Kaori.'

'Do you think he'll break up with Kaori-san?' Kizuna asked now sounding worried.

'Probably,' Kyosuke replied taking a seat next to her, 'and as much as I think it'd be for the best, I don't want us to be the cause of their break up. It might be weird and even selfish of me to think like this but I don't want Seisuke to break up with Kaori because of something she did to us. Do you understand that?'

'I think I do,' Kizuna said.

'I'm sure that sooner or later she'll mess up badly enough without us having anything to do with it,' Kyosuke continued, 'and when she does, we need to make sure we're by Seisuke's side to help him get through it.'

'We will be,' Kizuna said smiling encouragingly.

For some reason that "we" of hers sounded so great to Kyosuke that he grew even more convinced of the fact that he and Kizuna were destined to be a great team. He also knew that with her by his side, nothing life threw at him would be too much. With her by her side he felt that he could, at long last, just be himself.

_To be continued…_


	27. Chapter Twenty Six

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty Six_

Nearly two months had passed since the gathering in Mt Myogi and on the second Wednesday of August, a third of the Golden Arrows did their best to endure the very warm and muggy weather while they watched as twenty six karts went around the go-kart circuit in Kisarazu City in the Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo, in what was the ninth event of the twelve races valid for the All-Japan Karting Championship.

'Geez it's hot,' Kizuna complained trying to fan herself with her white baseball cap.

'It is,' Kyosuke agreed, 'I can't imagine how Akito must be feeling.'

Kizuna nodded to that while she thought that, at least, here at the grandstand there was a very light breeze.

'Guys,' Kazuya announced all of a sudden, 'there's something I've been meaning to ask you.'

'What is it?' Seisuke asked without taking his eyes off the track.

'Do you know how my family go to Fukuoka every summer?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'you guys have a house there, right?'

'Yes,' Kazuya confirmed, 'the thing is, we were supposed to travel there next week but something's come up and my father can no longer make it so my mother has decided that this year she wants to go to Italy with some corporate wives.'

'Oh,' Seisuke gasped this time looking at Kazuya, 'she's not going to Milan too, is she?'

'Probably,' he replied, 'Kaori should be there now, shouldn't she?'

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied, 'she'll be there for three weeks with a couple of her girlfriends.'

'How come didn't you go with her?' Kizuna asked before she could help herself, 'I mean, one day I'd love to visit Italy and a few other European countries, there are so many interesting things to see there…'

'Yeah,' Seisuke snorted, 'pity Kaori and her friends are probably raiding every single shop they can find there. I mean, it's the world's fashion capital, I highly doubt they'll have time to visit any of the city sights.'

'Anyway,' Kazuya said getting their attention back on him, 'as I was saying, my parents are not going to be using the house this year and, since most of us are on holidays, I thought we could all go there instead.'

'Really?' Kizuna asked.

'Yes,' Kazuya replied, 'it's a fairly large house and there's room for all of us,' he stopped and then, he smiled and added, 'also, we usually fly there but since its just over one thousand kilometres we could organise a…'

'…road trip!' Seisuke exclaimed happily, 'oh yes, I approve, I approve, Aniki please say that you approve!'

'Well, I…'

'It's a good idea,' Kizuna said, 'we could use the chance to do some team-building exercises during the trip.'

Seisuke and Kazuya smiled at her gratefully.

'Alright,' Kyosuke accepted, 'I guess it could be organised, I mean, like you said, we are on holidays.'

'Fantastic!' Seisuke said then, glancing at Kazuya, he asked him, 'how soon can we leave?'

'Anytime really,' Kazuya replied, 'I only need to give the heads up to the housekeepers so that they can get things ready for us, also, we need to figure out how many of us can actually make it and then we need to…'

'…we need to pay attention to the race,' Kyosuke interrupted him gently indicating the track with his head.

'But Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'Akito's in the lead, he's going to…'

'Don't say it,' his brother stopped him, 'you'll jinx him. We'll have plenty of time to organise things later.'

With that, all four of them watched Akito crusing along the short main straight as he started the eleventh lap of twenty one. He then drove past the space reserved for the people who came to support the drivers. There, they could see Akito's father and grandfather, Ryoko and Akito's eight year old sister Haruko together with Koichiro Iketani and Itsuki Takeuchi, ready to intervene if Akito had any problems with his kart.

The young racer was making his way around the circuit while the kart in second place, driven by a seventeen year old from Kanagawa, did its best to keep up with the defending All Japan Karting Champion. He was too far to pose any immediate threat to Akito's first position but the race was long and anything could happen. For this reason, Akito decided to increase the pace a little, thus further increasing the gap.

'Easy there,' Takumi said speaking through his handheld radio.

Needless to say, Akito simply ignored his father and during the following seven he managed to get a sixteen seconds lead over the kid from Kanagawa. With only three more laps to go, he finally decided to slow down a bit when he found the kart which was currently in the last position of the race. Not feeling too worried, Akito veered to overtake him when, for some stupid reason, the guy decided to start blocking him.

'What the…'

Following him into the high speed right hander, Akito stared at the kart in front of him in disbelief. He knew that it was natural for the guy to try and hold onto his position because, as per the karting regulations, if he got lapped by the kart in first place, he would be disqualified from the race. Considering this and the fact that he had a large enough lead made Akito ponder whether he could just stay there for the rest of the race.

He followed the guy for nearly half a lap, watching the way the other racer negotiated the corners. Akito saw that while his driving was neat enough, the kid seemed to have a problem with the speed: he simply wasn't fast enough, almost as if he were afraid to push it. That gave Akito an idea and, increasing the speed of his own kart, he got as reasonably close as possible so that he could try and encourage him to push it.

That seemed to work and, soon enough, the guy was driving slightly faster. Akito smiled to himself and, taking the chance that they were driving along the straight, he turned round briefly to see where the racer from Kanagawa was, confirming that the gap between the two karts was still wide enough for Akito to be able to take it relatively easy. He then returned his attention to the kart in front of him when he saw it.

Smoke. Heaps of it.

Coming out of the kart's little engine, Akito saw that the guy in front of him had just blown it up and, soon enough, a copious amount of oil started leaking from the engine together with the smoke. Akito felt his eyes getting wider when he found himself driving onto the suddenly slippery surface, fighting with the steering wheel so that he could keep his kart onto the tarmac. Thankfully, the driver of the broken down kart was wise enough to pull over and soon Akito had a clear track in front of him.

Unfortunately, this had two nasty consequences: one, his own kart and the visor of his helmet were covered by tiny splotches of oil which made it difficult for him to see properly. He spent a few precious instants peeling off one of the several plastic covers of the visor and, just then, he heard what he already suspected.

'Number Five is just four seconds away from you.'

He checked quickly and saw that the wide gap he'd had during most of the race was reduced to almost nothing and, even though there were less than two laps to go, Akito knew well that it was plenty of time for the other kart to, not only catch up with him but also to overtake him if he pushed it enough. Fighting the urge to increase his speed, reminding himself that he too could end up blowing the kart's engine up, he damned himself for being so arrogant as to think he could afford being generous. This was a race, Akito told himself while he covered the three series of S shaped corners and, as such, there was no room for charity.

Taking a few calming breaths, Akito prepared himself for the last lap while he heard the other kart just at his back. The two karts crossed the finish line for the penultimate time separated by less then four seconds. Akito entered the first turn and then the second and then he saw the broken down kart parked by the side of the circuit. He then saw a rather large blotch of oil mixed with petrol in the middle of the track and was about to veer around it when, somehow, he sensed that the guy from Kanagawa would probably pass him.

'What is he doing?' Kizuna asked from the grandstand.

'No idea,' Kyosuke replied shaking his head in disbelief.

Everyone watched while Akito, in what was a suicidal move, drove right over the oil. They all held their breath, some bracing themselves thinking that they were about to see the kart spinning out of control when, for some inexplicable reason, Akito managed to clear the corner and stay firmly in first position. He kept it all the way around the lap and, a few instants later, he crossed the finish line effectively winning the race.

'I swear,' Seisuke said sounding amused, 'if he had to pay his lucky star, he'd be broke.'

Kyosuke, Kizuna and Kazuya all nodded their agreement. Then all four of them got up so that they could go down to the track and congratulate Akito for, not only winning the race but, what was a lot more important, renewing his title as the All Japan Karting Champion for the second year in a row. Akito had just got out of his kart and was removing his helmet when they saw the young racer of the broken down kart and a couple of other older guys walking up to him with a very upset expression on their faces.

'What were you playing at?' the driver asked Akito.

'Eh?'

'You heard my son,' one of the older men said, 'if you hadn't forced him to push it, the engine would have been fine and now we can't afford to repair it on time for the next race, what are you going to do about it?

'Er…' Akito hesiated feeling rather mortified.

'Excuse me,' Bunta intervened, 'but if your son had let him overtake him as he should have, my grandson here wouldn't have had to push him to try and keep his lead. If anything, it was your son breaking down which almost cost my grandson his race. What would you have done if he'd lost the championship because of that? Besides, these kids are racing, if your son can't drive fast enough, he shouldn't enter any race.'

Obviously not knowing how to counter that and seeing how they had attracted the attention of several people, including a fair number of circuit's officials, the two men and the teenager just walked away glaring at Akito who understood that, from then on, he'd just made himself an enemy when, if that wasn't bad enough, his grandfather turned to him and using the same stern tone of voice, he said:

'You made a big mistake too. He was last and you were first, it was your job to overtake him as quickly as possible, instead of remaining behind him doing goodness knows what. Or were you too afraid to even try?'

'Of course not,' Akito defended himself, 'I…'

'Good,' Bunta interrupted him, 'because people who are scared have no business in racing either.'

Akito just nodded looking positively ashamed.

'Right,' the legendary ex-racer said smirking, 'now go and get your trophy while we clean things up here.'

He didn't need to be asked twice and as Akito, his father and a beaming Ryoko watched Akito climbing onto the highest step of the podium, with the four members of the Golden Arrows standing not far from there.

'Wow,' Kizuna commented while Akito was being interviewed by the specialised press, 'that was harsh.'

'What was?' Kyosuke asked her.

'Poor Akito,' she replied, 'he's just won the race _and_ the championship but Fujiwara-san was super-strict.'

'He has to be,' Kyosuke countered, 'and he was right: Akito should have overtaken that guy instead of remaining behind him. It was a mistake and Akito knows that he should never do anything like that again.'

Kizuna just nodded while she considered that the fifteen year old really had a tougher than average life. Yet again, watching him smiling while he talked to Haruko and the rest of his friends and family, she thought that he didn't seem to look too upset in spite of the reprimand he'd just received from his own grandfather.

A few hours later, some of the Golden Arrows had joined Akito and his friends and family to celebrate with him that he'd just won his second national title. Kyoko proceeded to order plenty of food, including some pizzas to the delight of Haruko who, as everyone knew, adored pizza, especially the four cheeses one.

'Yummy!' she exclaimed taking a bite of her third slice.

'Okay,' Natsuki said, 'this is the last one, you've had enough today.'

'But Mum,' she protested in between bites, 'it's not every day Nii-chan wins a championship!'

'Thank goodness for that,' Natsuki said, 'if you ate this much pizza every day, you'd get too fat for you kart.'

Everyone started laughing watching the horrified Haruko putting down her half-eaten slice and no one in the room had any doubt that while the girl didn't care much about her figure, she was too young for that, she probably found terrifying the prospect of not being able to get into her kart anymore. Akito and Ryoko were still smiling when they saw the two Takahashi brothers, Kizuna and Kazuya walking towards them.

'Hey,' Kyosuke said, 'having fun?'

'Yeah,' Akito replied, 'even though it's a bit early, we still have three more races to go,'

'Yes,' Kyosuke agreed, 'but even if you didn't take part on those races you'd still win the championship.'

'Asides from that,' Kazuya intervened, 'we wanted to ask you if you're going to be busy next week.'

'Next week?' Akito repeated trying to concentrate, 'I'm not sure, I'd have to ask my father, why?'

'Well,' Kyosuke said, 'Kazuya here has invited us to the beach house his parents have in Fukuoka and we've decided to organise a road trip to go there, we were wondering if…'

'I'm coming,' Akito said nodding enthusiastically, 'I'm definitely coming.'

'Don't you need to ask your father first?' Ryoko asked him sensibly.

'Yeah,' Akito replied, 'er...' he hesitated and then, glancing at the corner of the room where his father was busy chatting to Itsuki and Iketani, he raised his voice and said, 'Dad, can you come here for a second?'

Takumi stopped talking and crossing the room, he joined his son and said:

'What is it?'

'Dad,' Akito started, 'please tell me that I can take the whole of next week off.'

'Next week?' Takumi asked.

'Yes,' Akito replied sounding hopeful, 'please Dad.'

'No,' Takumi replied and that made Akito look ultra depressed.

'Are you sure,' the kid insisted, 'please, can't we…'

'The thing is,' Takumi interrupted his son, 'there's something I've been meaning to tell you but I wanted us to be home so we could talk about it and also I didn't want it to distract you during today's race,' he stopped and he had everyone's attention focused on him made him get a little flustered, 'Tanaka-san called a cou…'

'Tanaka-san?' Akito asked, his eyes widening in recognition, '_that_ Tanaka-san?'

'Yes,' Takumi replied sounding a little annoyed at the interruption, 'he called a couple of days ago to say that he's managed to get one of his drivers into the next GP2 race and since there will be an available seat for the next F3 race, he's counting on you to be there and race for him. Of course, I said you'll be happy to.

'Oh,' was the only thing Akito could articulate.

'Well done mate!' Seisuke exclaimed slapping him on his back.

'I told you,' Ryoko said proudly, 'didn't I tell you that you'd debut in F3 before the end of the summer?'

'Yeah,' Akito breathed still looking like he couldn't believe it.

'Unfortunately,' Takumi continued, 'I have some bad news,' he said.

'What is it?' Akito asked frowning a little.

'Well,' Takumi said, 'to begin with, the race is next weekend and,' he stopped to glance at Ryoko, 'given the short notice, Tanaka-san's assistant has only managed to get visas issued for us two.'

'Visas?' Akito asked, 'what visas?'

'Akito,' Kyosuke said intervening in the conversation for the first time, 'where is the next F3 race?'

The young racer thought about it for a short instant before his brain came up with the answer.

'Shanghai.'

'Yes,' Takumi confirmed.

'Wait a minute,' Ryoko said, 'what are you saying?'

'I'm sorry sweetie,' Kyoko said, she and her husband Keisuke had overheard the entire conversation.

'What are you all saying?' Ryoko asked again sounding rather alarmed.

'You can't come with us,' Akito said sadly.

'What?' Ryoko asked him, 'but…I…'

'I'm really sorry,' Takumi said.

'Why are they racing in Shanghai?' Natsuki asked, 'I thought the F3 championship was a national one.'

'It is,' Takumi confirmed, 'but this is one of the two international venues they use during the year. Tanaka-san has decided to promote his current F3 driver to the GP2 race that will take place during the same weekend and that's what's given Akito the chance to get into a race. Otherwise he'll have to wait until next season.'

'I'm really sorry,' Akito said to Ryoko, 'I really wanted you to be there for my first F3 race, you know that.'

'I do,' she replied with a sad smile.

'There will be plenty of other races,' Keisuke said trying to reassure his daughter, 'don't worry about it.'

'I know that, Dad,' Ryoko replied doing her best to be reasonable but still looking rather miserable.

'I have an idea,' Kyosuke said all of a sudden, 'why don't you go on holidays with us?'

'That's a great idea,' Akito agreed nodding his approval.

'Where are you guys going?' Keisuke wanted to know.

'Fukuoka,' Kyosuke replied, 'Kazuya's family own a house there.'

'We originally wanted to ask Akito and your daughter to stay with us,' Kazuya explained.

'Who's going?' Kyoko asked.

'Most of the members of our team,' Seisuke replied.

'Will you be flying?' Keisuke asked frowning a little.

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'we're thinking of driving down there. It's just over one thousand kilometres so it's not impossible to cover the whole distance in one day. Besides, if you let Ryoko join us, Kizuna won't be alone.'

The two parents thought about it for a short while then, reaching the same decision, they nodded.

'Alright,' Keisuke said, 'since it's with you two, I guess it's safe enough to let her go.'

'That's great,' Akito exclaimed giving an encouraging smile to his girlfriend, 'it's great, isn't it?'

'Kazuya-san,' Ryoko said, 'is there a TV in your house? I want to watch the F3 race live, if possible.'

'Of course,' Kazuya replied, 'we've got a sixty inches complete with a home theatre and satellite receiver.'

'Alright,' Ryoko said smiling a little, 'in that case, I'll go. It's always better than being here on my own.'

With that settled, the party continued in spite of the fact that Ryoko still looked a little sad that she would miss out on her boyfriend's first F3 race. To his credit, Akito didn't separate himself from her during the rest of the time while doing his best to cheer her up by reminding her of the great beaches and many other tourist attractions one could find in Fukuoka, including the Tenjin are which was famous for having enough shops to satisfy the most demanding of the shoppers. That managed to put a bigger smile on her face.

'I'm glad she's feeling better,' Kizuna commented while she and Kyosuke went outside to get some fresh air.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke said, 'to be honest, I thought she would throw a tantrum.'

'Why is that?' Kizuna asked.

'No reason,' Kyosuke replied, 'I guess I still expect her to behave like a little girl.'

'Really?' Kizuna said, 'I think that she's pretty mature for her age.'

'Yes,' Kyosuke confirmed, 'I think so too and it worries me a lot more than I thought it would.'

'Why is that?' Kizuna asked him.

'Well,' he said, 'to begin with, I think she's pushing herself to cope with stuff she might not fully understand because, to be honest, sometimes _I_ find it hard to process the fact that Akito's gone this far so quickly. Don't get me wrong, I knew that sooner or later he'd take his first step into professionalism but it's happened sooner than I thought and I'm not sure what to think of that yet. Sometimes I think he's still too young.'

'I know,' Kizuna said, 'he's not even sixteen yet.'

'Precisely,' Kyosuke said, 'and hearing that he'll go all the way to Shanghai, kind of freaks me out. I'm not sure he's ready for that yet, had it been one of the national races, I would have thought it'd be okay because I had every intention of being there to support him but, in Shanghai, he'll be all alone with his father.'

Kizuna observed him and let out a soft chuckle.

'You know,' she said, 'the way you talk about him, it really sounds like you think of him as a little brother.'

'I do,' Kyosuke admitted, 'that's the reason why I'm so worried. I'd be the same if it were Seisuke.'

'I know,' Kizuna said, 'but unlike with Seisuke, you can't keep an eye on Akito just as easily, right?'

'Precisely,' Kyosuke replied sounding glad that she understood him, 'that's part of the problem. Ever since he got into that F3 team, I've only seen him here at the Centre and only whenever he took breaks from his training. He hasn't shown up to any of our meetings and doesn't even know about any of the challenges we've received, mainly because he's stopped asking about them.'

'I know,' she repeated now sounding a little worried.

'To be honest with you,' he continued, 'I know that you said that he can't wait to join the Golden Arrows but, I'm growing more and more convinced that Akito will never be part of our team. He still hasn't had his first official race and he's already too busy to even take some time off to go on holidays, imagine what it'll be like when he'll have to deal with a full season plus all the commitments he'll have as a professional racer.'

Kizuna didn't say anything to that because, deep down, she was beginning to agree with Kyosuke.

A few days later, Akito practically moved to the Twin Ring Motegi circuit where he joined the PIAA-Tanaka team to train with them for his upcoming debut. He knew that Takayuki Tanaka had drivers competing in both F3 and GP2 and that the team was considered one of the best of the grid having won several titles in its fifteen years of existence. Akito also liked the fact that their cars were painted in black and white.

Just like his father's Trueno.

On Sunday morning, on his fourth day there and while he waited for the mechanics to finish fiddling with the suspensions of his F3 car, he saw Tanaka walking towards him talking to a guy Akito knew only be face: he was Jito Go and he was the nineteen year old racer Akito was going to replace in the F3 race in Shanghai.

'Hello,' the team manager said.

'Good morning,' Akito said bowing politely.

'Is your father around?' Tanaka asked.

'Yes,' Akito said, 'he's just gone to get something to drink, he'll be back soon.'

'Alright,' Tanaka said, 'I take you know him?' he asked Akito indicating the other older racer.

'Of course,' Akito replied, 'it's a pleasure to meet you, Go-san.'

'Jito will be fine,' the guy said offering him a friendly smile, 'after all, it's thanks to you that I got promoted.'

'Excuse me?' Akito asked him looking puzzled.

'Fujiwara-kun,' Tanaka intervened, 'if I hadn't found you, I don't think I would have let my best F3 driver go ahead to GP2. I wanted to be sure I found a suitable replacement before I could let him move up to GP2.'

'I see,' Akito said.

'It'll be the same for you,' Jito said, 'if you have what it takes to stay here, that is.'

'I'll do my best,' Akito promised.

'I'm sure you will,' Tanaka said with a smile which could really mean anything. Akito was only too happy to see his father returning with a couple of cans of soda and then, the team manager went to talk to him about the details of their upcoming trip to Shanghai. They were leaving on Wednesday and Akito was very nervous.

'He's not that bad,' he heard Jito saying.

'Pardon?' Akito asked politely.

'Tanaka,' Jito said, 'he's a cool guy. He's mostly business-like all the time but if you get on his good side, he'll be a great team manager. That said, if you mess up or you cause him problems, you'll be out of the team faster than you can get out of the car so make sure you behave well and you drive even better.'

'I understand,' Akito said.

'You know,' Jito said, 'I can't wait to see you in action, you must be quite something…'

Akito didn't say anything to that and, for some reason, that made Jito smile at him.

'It's a pity you and I are going to be racing in different categories,' he continued, 'this way I'll never now if you're good enough to beat me but hey, if you hurry up a little, we might meet up in Formula 1 one day.'

'Is that what you're aiming for?' Akito allowed himself to ask.

'Of course,' Jito replied, 'I'll be the first Japanese who wins the championship, you'll see.'

This time it was Akito who smiled and, nodding, he said:

'I'll do my best to keep up with you Jito-san.'

Jito nodded too and was going to say something when the mechanics told Akito that the car was ready.

'Go,' Jito said, 'I'll watch you from here.'

'No pressure, huh?' Akito tried to joke.

'None at all,' Jito replied with a friendly smirk.

After adjusting his helmet to the HANS device, Akito climbed into the single-seater's cockpit and, signalling to the mechanics that he was ready to go, they turned the engine on, removed the covers of the tyres and then, as smoothly as humanly possible, Akito inserted the first gear and started rolling the car outside the box then, shifting the gears up, he applied more pressure on the throttle and soon he was cruising down the pitlane on his way to the main track.

He knew Motegi rather well since, other than the one at the Centre, it was the full sized circuit he had closest to his home and, having spent three full days training there, he had already found what he thought were the best lines in both the traditional circuit as well as the oval-ring which gave the circuit its name.

This morning and since they were going to test the suspensions, Akito had been told to use the normal track so, taking the first corner, a nearly ninety degrees left hander, he followed through a much higher speed right turn which led to one of the many straights that graced the circuit. He loved this one because, right at the end of it, there was a hairpin and Akito had long decided that corners like that one were his favourite.

Enjoying the fact that this car was a lot better balanced than the one he used for training, he pushed it through the hairpin, letting the inertia lead him to a much shorter straight. After that, there were a series of five corners set in a right-left-right-left-left pattern which then went onto the sector surrounding the paddock's parking area. There, he knew, his father had parked his beloved AE88 and for a fleeting instant, Akito wondered what it would feel like to drive that car in this circuit.

Knowing better than to let his concentration drop, Akito went around the last corner of the track, a very wide and fast left hander and, from there, he launched his car into the first proper flying lap so that he could do it all over again. While he did that, his father and his Team Manager joined Jito Go and the mechanics.

'How is he doing?' Tanaka asked talking to his Chief Engineer.

'Check it out yourself,' the man replied with a smirk while he showed his boss his laptop's screen.

'Oh wow,' Tanaka said laughing softly, he glanced at Takumi and said, 'I wish I had met your son sooner.'

Takumi didn't say anything to that but, deep down, he felt a bubble of pride growing in his heart which got even bigger when he saw the half-impressed, half-incredulous look appearing on Jito's face and by the time Akito finished his run, everyone was extremely pleased with the way the kid was handling the single-seater. The Chief Engineer went as far as to say that it looked like Akito had been born to drive that little car.

'You did well,' Takumi commented once they drove home later on that evening.

'I like that car,' Akito confessed, 'it's a lot easier to drive than the one I use for training.'

'Of course it is,' Takumi replied and seeing his son's confused expression, he explained, 'the car you're driving now is being prepared hoping that it'll help you get a good result in the race. The one you've been using up to now was set up to be harder to drive so that you trained yourself to overcome that difficulty.'

'I see,' Akito said.

'To be honest,' Takumi said sounding a little disappointed, 'I thought you had figured it out by now.'

Akito refused to reply to his father's challenge and, instead, he glanced over the window feeling more than a little ashamed that, yet again, his father had pawned him badly. He didn't stay silent for long because, less than five minutes later, he remembered that there was something important he needed to ask to his father.

'Dad,' he said.

'Yes?' Takumi replied.

'Can we drop by the Takahashi?' Akito asked.

'Why?'

'Because Ryoko is leaving tomorrow and I won't have the chance to see her for a whole week,' Akito said.

'Alright,' Takumi said, 'call them first to make sure we're not intruding.'

Akito let out a frustrated sigh and, grabbing his phone, he pressed the auto-dial button to call Ryoko, finding it unbelievable that, even after so many years, his father still felt the need to be overly formal with the original set of Takahashi brothers. He stopped thinking of that when the love of his life answered the phone.

_To be continued…_


	28. Chapter Twenty Seven

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty Seven_

It was only half past four in the morning but things were definitely hectic at the Takahashi residence and while the rest of their family rushed around the house doing one thing or another, Ryosuke and Akiko enjoyed some very rare time to relax together before he went off to the Arakawa Hospital and she went to get some much needed sleep. The two smiled at each other when they saw their sister-in-law and her daughter coming into the breakfast room, obviously disagreeing with something.

'Mum,' Ryoko protested, 'for the last time: we're not going to be in the middle of a desert, I'm pretty sure Fukuoka has at least one chemist where I can get medicines _should_ I need them.'

'But honey…'

'Aunt Akiko, please,' Ryoko said asking for help.

'Kyoko,' the doctor said patiently, 'I'm sure that if they indeed need anything, they'll be able to get it there.'

'But…'

'Also,' Ryosuke added, 'Seisuke always carries one of our first aid kits in his car, remember?'

'Ah,' Kyoko gasped in realisation, 'that's true.'

'There,' Ryoko said, she then sat down next to her aunt and poured herself some tea.

At that precise moment, Kyosuke and Seisuke entered the room followed by their Uncle Keisuke who looked like he'd just got out of bed and was dying to get back in it. He ignored everyone while he got some coffee.

'Are you ready?' Kyosuke asked his cousin.

'I am,' Ryoko said, 'my trolley is already next to your car.'

'Aren't we efficient,' Seisuke muttered sarcastically while he stiffled a yawn.

Ryoko ignored her cousin knowing better than to argue with someone who was as bad in the mornings as her own father. Keisuke started sipping his daily caffeine dose leaning against the kitchen's counter and only paid attention when his older brother put his cup of black coffee down and, looking at his sons, he said:

'I've been thinking of something to make this road trip of yours slightly more interesting.'

Kyosuke and Seisuke, along with the rest of the family, focused on him waiting for a lengthy explanation.

'You'll find all the details in an email I've just sent to you two,' Ryosuke said instead, he then finished drinking his coffee and started checking something in his laptop, clearly refusing to elaborate his idea any further. That made the two brothers rush to eat their breakfast so that they could read their father's email and, a few minutes later Kyosuke said:

'Let's go.'

'Mum,' Seisuke said, 'can I take a couple of those?' he asked pointing at the muffins.

'Of course,' Akiko replied smiling at her youngest son, 'let me pack them for you.'

'Ryoko?' Kyosuke tried.

'I'm ready,' she said getting up from her chair and her mother chose that instant to start fussing again:

'Be careful,' Kyoko told her.

'And don't cause any problems to your cousins, okay?' Keisuke added.

'Call us the moment you guys get there, okay?' Kyoko nearly begged.

'And if you get in trouble or…'

'Mum, Dad,' Ryoko stopped them looking slightly alarmed, 'I'll be fine, seriously. I'm not going to war!'

'We know that, sweetie,' Kyoko said, 'it's just that…'

'Aunt Kyoko we really need to go,' Kyosuke insisted then, looking at Ryoko's parents and their overly worried expressions, he reassured them, 'we'll take care of her, we promise, okay?'

'Yes,' Kyoko replied looking a little teary.

'Mum, please…'

'Boys,' Akiko intervened, 'leave now or you'll be late.'

Thanks to that, they all finally moved out of the kitchen and all seven of them made their way to the garage where Keisuke helped his beloved daughter load the absurdly large trolley she had with her. He then hugged her for a long time, as if he was reluctant to let her go, forcing the girl to pull herself free only to be engulfed into another hug by her mother who really looked like she was going to burst into tears.

'Mum…' Ryoko started, her voice muffed by her mother's shoulder, 'I need to go…'

'Kyoko,' Akiko said helping her niece out of the cuddle.

'Alright, alright,' the woman protested, 'I'm just…'

'I know,' Akiko said softly but firmly, 'but they'll be fine.'

Right then, Seisuke turned the engine of his RZ-1 on and the sound coming from the rotary made everyone stand back. That allowed Ryoko to finally get away from her parents and, joining Kyosuke in his own RZ-1, she adjusted the seat belts for their short ride to Kizuna's place. She then got her window down and said:

'I love you!'

'We love you too,' Kyoko said, while Keisuke nodded.

After this and five minutes behind Kyosuke's carefully planned schedule, the two Mazda left the garage, leaving the two older couples in it, with Kyoko crying while Keisuke looked worried and Akiko trying hard not to laugh at them. It was Ryosuke who put the situation under the right perspective by smiling and saying:

'The kids are gone and we're home alone...'

'…it's going to be a great week,' Akiko finished smiling back at him.

Meanwhile, Kyosuke was in awe after he'd heard Ryoko reading out loud the contents of the email his father had sent to both of his sons and by the time they reached the apartment block where Kizuna lived he couldn't wait to have all the Golden Arrows gathered so that he could tell them all about it. Thankfully and just as he'd predicted, his girlfriend was already waiting for them inside her car and, probably knowing that they were short of time, the girl turned the engine of her car on the instant she saw the two Mazda.

'She's almost as scary as you are,' Ryoko commented.

'I know,' Kyosuke replied obviously taking it as a compliment.

A few moments later, both SF3Zs and the Z33 entered the petrol station by the entry to the Kan'Etsu Expressway at exactly ten minutes to five o'clock in the morning and Kyosuke was relieved to see that, despite the delay, they were the first ones to arrive. Parking all three cars in front of a very small café, the four of them climbed out of their rides so that they could wait for the rest of the Golden Arrows.

'Good morning,' the two brothers and Ryoko greeted Kizuna.

'Good morning,' she replied to them.

'Kyosuke,' Ryoko said, 'can you open the boot for me?'

'Why?' he asked.

'I need to transfer my trolley from your car to Kizuna-san's, don't I?'

'Not really,' he said, 'surely you have all you need for the trip in that huge bag of yours, don't you?'

'Yes, but…'

'In that case,' Kyosuke said, 'it's better if you leave it in my car, this way you won't weight down Kizuna's more than strictly necessary, after all, I'm going to be driving alone while you'll be travelling together.'

The two girls gave him a funny look trying to decide whether Kyosuke was trying to find a nice way to call them fat but, the sudden arrival of the three Subaru Legacy prevented them from saying anything about it.

'Trust them to be the first to get here,' Seisuke commented.

Just as Shuji, Tatsuya and Shigeru climbed out of their cars, they saw Kazuya's GD4 and Junya's S18 driving into the petrol station too and a few moments later, all nine of them watched Masato's group arriving there together with Izawa's dark grey Vera. They all had to repress a chuckle when they saw Shigeru leaving poor Tatsuya in mid-sentence to go and meet with Yuta who had just finished parking his S17.

'Good morning everybody,' Izawa said greeting everyone.

'Oh, be quiet,' Kei complained, 'it's too early to be so hyper.'

'Kei-chan,' Eiji said, 'be a good boy and don't spoil the mood.'

Kyosuke stopped Kei from potentially murdering Eiji by clearing his throat and speaking up:

'Okay, now that we're all here, there's something I need to tell you before we set off.'

Seisuke's grin grew wider.

'We're going to have a race,' Kyosuke said and, predictably enough, everyone erupted in a unanimous, overexcited cheer of joy, he then waited until they calmed down a bit to add, 'a race of_ regularity_.'

'Of what?' Junya asked him frowning a little.

'Let me explain,' Kyosuke said, 'from Maebashi to Nishi-ku in Fukuoka there are exactly one thousand, one hundred and sixty kilometres, most of which runs on several expressways, correct?' they all nodded, 'what we'll do is to split the length in three different sectors, from Maebashi to Nagoya, from Nagoya to Okayama and from Okayama all the way to Fukuoka. We will also have three checkpoints half way through each of those sectors and we will all program our sat-nav to record the elapsed time between each of those cities as well as your average speed and fuel consumption. The winner will be whoever sets the best overall average.'

'Let me get this straight,' Kazuya said, 'you're telling us we can't go fast?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'the key here is to be regular. We all have sat-nav systems installed in our cars and they can all be programmed to give you the estimated time of arrival as well as how much petrol it should take you to get there. Those values are calculated taking into consideration the current traffic laws which means that if you go too fast, you'll get there too soon and will use more petrol than what the sat-nav predicted. At the end of the race we'll pull the data out of their memory and compare it with the others.'

'And whoever kept closer to the sat-nav's predictions wins, right?' Kizuna asked.

'Exactly,' Seisuke said.

'Our father,' Kyosuke added, 'has organised this race to make sure we understand just how much harder it is to drive keeping an average rather than going flat out, also, it's a good way for us to keep ourselves busy.'

'That's true,' Shuji reasoned.

'Alright,' Masato said, 'I like the idea.'

'One question,' Yuta said, 'do we have to go alone?'

'No,' Kyosuke said, 'I was thinking of doing this in pairs, this way we'll have someone to keep us company for whenever we'll take breaks to refuel, eat and/or rest a bit, I'm serious about this,' he said noticing the look Kei and Junya had exchanged with each other, 'I expect that we'll arrive at Fukuoka no earlier than eight pm, that gives us nearly fifteen hours. I don't want anyone driving for too long, not only it's dangerous for you guys but the cars also need a break every now and then and you all know that, don't we?'

'Yes,' Junya replied a little reluctantly.

'Kei?'

'I get it,' he said.

'Good,' Kyosuke said, 'now, the pairs…'

'We're together,' Shigeru and Yuta announced at the same time.

'Of course,' Seisuke laughed.

'We wouldn't dream splitting you two up,' Kazuya said, 'after all, you're the Golden Arrows Official Couple.'

'That's right,' Yuta said grinning at Shigeru who, unbelievably enough, smiled back at him.

'It's beyond me how anyone could take that as a compliment,' Seisuke whispered to Kazuya who nodded.

'Anyway,' Kyosuke said raising his voice a little, 'is there any other preferences or…'

'We'd like to travel together too,' Masato said pointing at himself and Izawa.

'Alright,' Kyosuke agreed, 'I take you two will go together too?' he asked to Shuji and Tatsuya.

'If you don't mind,' Shuji said.

'Not at all,' Kyosuke said and before he could add anything else, Kei and Junya had decided to pair up too. That left Kazuya, Eiji, Seisuke, Kizuna and Ryoko and he was going to ask Kazuya if he had any preferences when Eiji hooked his arm with him and said: 'I'm sure our two Honda will make the most wonderful team.'

'Alright,' Kazuya said surrendering to the inevitable, 'it's not like I want to split the fantastic duo?'

'Who?' Seisuke asked.

'Oh, wait,' Kazuya said looking slightly confused, 'it's a trio now, or rather…'

'Don't look at us,' Kizuna said indicating herself and Ryoko, 'we're going to go solo.'

'What?' Kyosuke asked her, 'but…'

'Aren't you going to go with your brother?' Kizuna asked him.

'I…'

'That's right,' Ryoko intervened, 'we've got each other for company, don't we?'

'Of course,' Kizuna replied smiling at her.

'Alright,' Kyosuke accepted reluctantly, 'if you're sure about that, I just…'

'Don't worry,' Kizuna reassured him, 'we won't be far enough to be out of your radio's range, okay?'

'Okay,' Kyosuke said then, he glanced at everyone and added, 'speaking of which: I want all of you to be in constant radio contact with your partner, since the pairs will probably be too far from each other to use the main channel, we will use the private frequencies to stay in touch with the other. In addition to that, keep your mobile phones on at all times, and if there is a problem, I want to be the first to know, okay?'

'Sure,' some of them said while the others just nodded.

'One more thing,' Kyosuke said eyeing the stickers on Izawa's Toyota, 'let's not be too conspicuous, okay?'

A few members of the Golden Arrows rushed to take the decals off their cars and, once they were all devoid of anything which could identify them as a racing team, Kyosuke decided they were ready to go.

'Okay,' he added, 'let's do it like in rallying: each pair will leave two minutes after the other, since Kazuya needs to get there before anyone else, he and Eiji will go first, after them, it's you two,' he said indicating at Kei and Junya, 'and after that, it'll be Masato and Izawa, Shige and Yuta, Shuji and Tatsuya and then, it'll be you,' he finished glancing at Kizuna and Ryoko, 'Seisuke and I will be the last ones to leave. Any questions?'

'No,' Junya replied on everyone's behalf.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'in that case, the race starts now, best of luck!'

Hearing this made Kazuya and Eiji rush to their Honda and soon, both the dark red Civic and the black NSX left the petrol station together at a regular speed. Shortly after that, both Kei and Junya were already onboard their cars and soon the white Mitsubishi and the light blue Nissan took off driving way too fast.

'Idiots,' Seisuke muttered while a few others nodded their agreement.

Another two minutes went by and Masato and Izawa drove away with their Vera, this time, the two friends went off without causing a scene and, soon, the other two pairs followed them leaving only the two girls and the Takahashi brothers. Ryoko hurried to get her huge bag out of Kyosuke's car while Kizuna started the car.

'Be careful, okay?' Kyosuke asked her gently.

'I will,' Kizuna promised.

'If anything happens…'

'Oh,' Ryoko complained while she got into the passenger's seat, 'I swear: you're worse than my parents.'

Seisuke let out a chuckle which quickly became a fake cough and, before Kyosuke could protest, Kizuna waved at him while she and Ryoko drove out of the parking area leaving the two brothers behind. Just then, Ryoko started busying herself rummaging through her huge bag as if she were looking for some treasure.

'What do you have in there?' Kizuna asked her curiously.

'A few things,' Ryoko replied, 'this,' she said producing a couple of bottles of water wrapped by their own cooling fabric container, 'and this,' she added getting a bag of sweets, 'I also have biscuits, a couple of cans of coffee, some juice and two bottles of green tea which I just got out of the freezer so they should keep cold for a while. I have moisturising wipes, my mp3 player and a few magazines in case we get bored.'

'I'm going to be driving,' Kizuna pointed out.

'I know,' she said laughing softly, 'I'll read them out loud to you, there are some tests I thought it'd be fun for us to do together and then compare the results. If you want, that is, I don't know if that's your kind of…'

'I'll be happy to,' Kizuna assured her, 'but we'll need to keep an eye on the sat-nav too, speaking of which…'

'I have a confession to make,' Ryoko interrupted her, 'last night Akito came to see me and when we talked about this trip, we thought it'd be fun if we planned the ideal itinerary. I've saved the one we came up with into a memory card and if you want, I can upload it to your sat-nav and use it as reference.'

'That's perfect,' Kizuna said sounding impressed.

A few moments later, the LCD screen on the 350Z's sat-nav was displaying a list of the cities they would have to drive through as well as the distance between them, the ideal average speed they had to keep and every place along the way where they could stop to refuel and/or eat. Ryoko also selected the function which would keep track of all the different parameters ready to be extracted at the end of the race.

'We're all set,' she said, 'it's now five thirty two,' she continued, 'and according to the itinerary, we should get to Nagoya in about five hours and eleven minutes. The first checkpoint is in Ina City which is three hours and twenty eight minutes away. Do you want us to stop there or would you rather carry on driving?'

'I think I'll try and make it all the way to Nagoya,' Kizuna said, 'I'm sure that's what everyone will do.'

'Probably,' Ryoko agreed, 'I wouldn't be surprised if some of them try to make it all the way to Kyoto.'

'Yeah, you're right,' Kizuna said with a soft chuckle, 'but we want to win this race, don't we?'

'Of course,' Ryoko replied nodding enthusiastically, she then got serious and said, 'is the radio on?'

'Oh crap…' Kizuna said and was going to press the button when Ryoko stopped her.

'Wait,' she said, 'I need to ask you something.'

'What is it?' Kizuna asked frowning a little.

'I don't know how big Kazuya-san's house is,' she said, 'but, maybe there won't be enough rooms for all of us…and…in that case…well…I…I thought that…er…'

'Ryoko-chan?' Kizuna asked glancing quickly at her before she returned her attention to the road.

'Well,' the younger girl said speaking very fast, 'I was just wondering if you and Kyosuke will sleep together.'

'WHAT?' Kizuna nearly shouted. She had to use every one of her driving skills to keep the car straight.

'Hey,' Ryoko defended herself, 'I was just wondering if you'll share with me or if you'll want to be with him.'

Kizuna remained silent not really knowing how to answer to that. In fact, she hadn't even considered that possibility and now that she was faced with it, she had no idea of what to do. She found it surprising that Kyosuke had not even mentioned it but, again, excepting that stormy night in which they got back together, they still had to go beyond hugging and kissing but Ryoko had a fair point: they were going on a trip and…

'Kizuna-san?'

'What?'

'Do you want me to drive?' Ryoko asked her tentatively.

'Eh?' Kizuna gasped and then she realised that her car wasn't going on a straight line anymore. Fighting with the steering wheel, she got it back in the middle of the lane feeling grateful that there was no traffic and that, thankfully, the two RZ-1s were too far away from her to have noticed the weird manoeuvre, 'oh crap.'

'Are you alright?' Ryoko asked her.

'Yeah,' Kizuna half-mumbled.

'I'm sorry,' Ryoko said, 'I didn't want to trouble you, I just…'

'It's okay,' Kizuna interrupted her, 'I just hadn't thought about it, I…well, I don't know what we'll do.'

'Oh,' Ryoko said, 'I see. I take you two…well…'

'Oh no,' Kizuna replied, 'not yet,' then something made her add, 'you and Akito?'

'No way,' Ryoko said quickly, 'we're way too young for that.'

'Too true,' Kizuna agreed then remained quiet for a bit before she asked, 'can I be honest with you?'

'Of course,' Ryoko replied.

'I don't think Kyosuke is too interested,' Kizuna confessed, 'you know, he's…'

'…a prude,'

'He's not a prude,' Kizuna defended him.

'Yes he is,' Ryoko countered, 'in terms of girls, Kyosuke has the audacity of a rock and you know that.'

'That's true,' Kizuna admitted.

'Sometimes I think that he and Seisuke should try and balance each other a bit,' Ryoko said, 'you know, when Seisuke lost his virginity in…'

'I don't think I want to know that much about him,' she interrupted her frowning, 'and how do _you_ know?'

'He was very proud of it,' Ryoko replied nonchalantly, 'I think that short of posting it online, he let everyone know that he'd joined the Big Boys Club. I personally found it funny but Kyosuke was very scandalised by it.'

'I bet he was,' Kizuna said with a nod full of understanding.

'At any rate,' Ryoko said, 'if you want anything to happen, I'm afraid you'll have to give him a hint and, when I say hint, I'm thinking of something along the lines of a pink neon sign, if you know what I mean.'

Kizuna could only bring himself to nod while, in her mind, she pictured herself showing up naked in Kyosuke's room with a gigantic arrow pointing at her saying: OPEN FOR BUSINESS. She shook her head in disbelief.

'I think you've got the point,' Ryoko said sounding rather amused.

Some distance ahead of the two girls, Kei and Junya had definitely forgotten all about the regularity part of the race and were currently chasing each other down the expressway at a very high speed and within just a few kilometres, they quickly found themselves overtaking the two Honda driven by Eiji and Kazuya.

'Awesome One to Prince, do you copy?'

'I copy you Awesome One,' Eiji replied.

'Those two are idiots,' Kazuya said.

'Perfect assessment, Awesome One,' Eiji replied, 'so, should we let them get away with it?'

'Yes,' Kazuya replied, 'I'm sure they'll pay for it and, at any rate, I'm the one who has the keys to the house.'

'Good point,' Eiji said, 'well, I'll look forward to seeing them fail.'

'So do I, Prince,' Kazuya said with a smirk.

The two of them kept on driving all the way to Nagoya and, exactly five hours and five minutes after they left Maebashi, they saw the signs for the service area where they would stop to refuel their cars and get an early lunch. The two Honda were driving into the petrol station when they saw something which made both drivers burst out laughing: Kei's car was there, it had it's hood up and Kei was staring at it looking worried.

'Hey,' Eiji said climbing out of the car, 'what's up with your baby?'

'Nothing,' Kei replied all too quickly.

'Where's Junya?' Kazuya asked him.

'That bastard,' Kei hissed angrily, 'he just drove ahead even though I…'

'…even though you?' Eiji teased him.

'None of your business,' Kei grunted.

'It's typical of Junya,' Kazuya said trying to be sympathetic while feeling rather angry at his cousin for, yet again, being a major prick, 'you're welcome to join us,' he added, 'if you think your car can make it.'

'Of course it can,' Kei protested, 'it's just needs to cool down a bit.'

'Alright,' Kazuya said soothingly, 'in the meantime, let's go and get something to eat.'

A few moments later they were sitting inside the cafeteria doing their best to enjoy their bento which was a far cry from the delicacies Kazuya was used to. Kei also seemed to have trouble trying to convince himself that the food was edible while Eiji was very busy chatting up with a group of four girls sitting at the table next to theirs. Despite their best efforts, neither Kei nor Kazuya could help but to hear their conversation.

'So,' Eiji said brushing his long fringe out of his face, 'where are you girls going?'

'Kyoto,' one of them said shyly.

'Oh, such a beautiful city,' Eiji said, 'but nowhere near as beautiful as you four.'

Kei rolled his eyes while Kazuya found it utterly unbelievable to see the girls smiling back at him.

'Of course,' Eiji continued, 'four cute girls like you must have equally cute names, am I right?'

'I'm Rie,' one of them said, 'she's Aya, this one is Eri and she's Miyu.'

'Such pretty names,' he replied, 'mine is Eiji and they're my friends Kazuya and Kei, we're all off to Fukuoka.'

'That's really far away,' the girl called Eri said giving an extra long glance at Kei who proceeded to blush.

'It is,' Eiji agreed, 'but to meet girls as cute as you we'd drive to the moon and back.'

By the end of the "meal", Kazuya was fairly dismayed to see that, not only Eiji had managed to get three of their email addresses but Eri also gave hers to a very flustered Kei who only managed to mumble something incomprehensible before he practically dragged both Eiji and Kazuya out of the place. They then proceeded to check that the EVO's temperature was back to normal before going to the self-service fuel pumps.

'You're unbelievable, you know that?' Kei told Eiji while he filled the tank of his Mitsubishi.

'Why is that?' Eiji asked innocently, 'Eri-chan was cute enough…'

'What about Maki-chan?' Kei asked him.

'Who is Maki-chan?' Kazuya asked sounding curious.

'My girlfriend,' Eiji replied casually.

'You have a _girlfriend_?' Kazuya said finding it harder to believe than if Eiji had told him he was an alien.

'Of course,' Eiji laughed, 'how can someone as great as I am _not _have one?'

Without waiting for Kazuya's answer, he finished filling his car and went to the cashier to pay for his petrol.

'He really is shameless, isn't he?' an amazed Kazuya asked Kei.

'And I thought you were smart,' the guy sneered sarcastically.

At long last, they got back into their cars and started driving out of the service area, with Kei feeling bitter that Junya had left him just like that and Kazuya in awe at the fact that, not only Eiji wasn't single but, what was even more useful, he was an ace when it came to picking up girls. He smiled at himself while he thought of all the bikini clad girls they would find on the beach: this was going to be the best road trip ever.

Later in the afternoon, Shuji and Tatsuya had just left behind Kyoto and were now on their way to the second checkpoint near the city of Takatsuki when, not far from there they saw a very familiar looking Subaru driving alongside a dark green S17. The two cars were driving at a very regular speed but they seemed to be driving a lot slower than the two Subaru. Tatsuya was about to warn Shigeru when Shuji said:

'Let's join them.'

Shuji didn't need Tatsuya to reply and, soon enough, they caught up with the other two cars.

'Hey!' Yuta shouted happily over the radio, 'you made it!'

'What do you mean?' Tatsuya asked him.

'We've been waiting for you,' Shigeru explained, 'Yuta and I thought that it'd be more fun with us four.'

'What about the race?' Shuji asked.

'We can still compete,' Yuta replied, 'Kyosuke-san said nothing against helping one another, did he?'

'That's true,' Tatsuya reasoned.

The three BT5s and the S17 started driving down the motorway and soon, Shuji and Tatsuya started listening to Yuta and Shigeru's conversation about weird things they'd seen in Akihabara, their manga and anime collections and a myriad other things. By the time they arrived at Okayama for a quick refuel, the two were discussing several conspiracy theories and cover up schemes used to conceal the existence of aliens.

'I have a headache,' Shuji complained while he and Tatsuya went to get some coffee.

'Me too,' Tatsuya said, 'I can't believe Shige's found someone who is weirder than he is.'

'Miracles do happen,' Shuji said with only a hint of sarcasm.

The four of them re-started their march while, some distance ahead of them, Masato and Izawa kept each other entertained playing the "I see" game. So far, they'd guessed a few of the challenges when Izawa said:

'I see….something with a K.'

'A K?' Masato repeated.

'Yes,' Izawa replied, he the added, 'and an E and…another K.'

'KEK?' Masato asked sounding really confused.

'Look ahead of us,' Izawa instructed him.

Masato did and, just as Izawa said, he felt surprised when he saw the two Honda and the Mitsubishi driving together. That made him think that they'd somehow screwed up with their average when he noticed that their speed was constant at one hundred and five. If anything, it was them who were too slow.

'Professor to Awesome One, do you copy?' Masato said, 'I repeat, Professor to…'

'Awesome One here,' Kazuya's voice said, 'I copy you loud and clear.'

'Phoenix here,' Izawa said, 'what's EVO Warrior doing with you two?'

'Don't ask,' Kei grunted.

'Alright,' Masato said, 'why are you driving so slowly? Has any of your cars…'

'Don't ask that either,' Kei interrupted him.

'We're going to stop at Hiroshima,' Kazuya informed them, 'to rest a bit,' he added, 'do you want to join us?'

'Sure,' Masato said, 'you're okay with that, right Phoenix?'

'Fine by me,' Izawa confirmed.

When they finally reached the service area just outside Hiroshima, Kei's car had overheated once again.

'You need to get it checked properly,' Kazuya said sounding unusually serious.

'I agree,' Izawa said.

'Kei,' Masato intervened before the guy could protest, 'I want Kyosuke-san to take a good look at it.'

'But…'

'Do you prefer having it towed all the way back home?' Masato challenged him.

'Of course not,' Kei huffed.

'There you go then,' Masato said then added, 'we're less than three hundred kilometres away from Fukuoka, I'm sure that if we let it cool off a bit, it'll be fine to get there but after that I don't want you anywhere near you car until we're sure that it won't blow up on you, okay?' Kei didn't answer, 'Kei?' he insisted.

'Alright,' Kei replied a tad reluctantly.

'Good,' Masato said, 'now, where in the heck is Junya?'

'No idea,' Kazuya replied, he checked his watch and said, 'at the speed he was travelling, he's probably near Kitakyushu by now, if not near Fukuoka. In any case, I emailed Kyosuke earlier to tell him about that and he's emailed me back saying that he's going to disqualify Junya's for leaving Kei behind when he was in trouble.'

'Does he know that?' Izawa asked him.

'Not yet,' Kazuya said with a smirk, 'I think Kyosuke plans on telling him off later.'

'It'll serve him right,' Kei said vindictively.

'It's your own fault,' Eiji said talking for the first time, 'what part of regularity race didn't you understand?'

'He's got a fair point,' Masato observed watching the murderous way in which Kei glared at Eiji.

'Anyway,' Izawa said trying to change topic, 'let's get something to eat, I'm starving.'

It was at exactly half past six in the evening when, just as per Kyosuke's perfectly planned schedule, the two RZ-1s drove through the motorway leaving the city of Kitakyushu behind. Seisuke no longer found it funny that, so far, they had reached every single one of the cities in between the different checkpoints within a minute or so of his older brother's estimated time of arrival. In fact, he was getting rather bored by it.

'Aniki,' he tried for the last time, 'it's the last spurt, can we…'

'No,' Kyosuke replied firmly, 'we only have eighty five point seven kilometres to reach our final target, we need to keep a constant speed of one hundred kilometres an hour for as long as we can to make it to Nishi-ku within one hour and twenty six minutes. Unfortunately, the traffic information I have from around the Fukuoka area isn't good enough to make a more accurate prediction but…'

'Alright,' Seisuke said tiredly, 'I get it.'

He sighed again and, for the umpteenth time that trip, he kind of wished he'd travelled with someone like Kazuya, especially after he'd heard from him that he had joined with Eiji, Masato, Kei and Izawa. He was even jealous of the other group formed by the three Subaru guys and Yuta and even the girls had probably had a lot more fun than the two brothers which, all things considered, was a rather sad thought.

For the past half a day, Kyosuke had measured them in everything they did, from their average speed to the amount of time they spent eating and he'd freaked out when Seisuke had gone to the bathroom without telling him first. Seisuke had then spent nearly two hours keeping a strict radio silence, in protest for being made feel like he were part in some sort of secret military experiment and thinking that this was probably Kyosuke's idea of fun. In short, Seisuke simply could not wait to see the rest of their team mates.

Thankfully, his misery didn't last long and exactly one hour and twenty six minutes later, to Kyosuke's joy, they arrived at Nishi-ku and, after driving by the famous Sky Dream ferris wheel, they arrived at their destination: an enormous mansion in western style placed right by the beach. There, parked in the large area in front of the property, they saw all then members of the Golden Arrows and Ryoko all looking enthralled by something Junya was telling them.

_To be continued…_


	29. Chapter Twenty Eight

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty Eight_

Seeing the two RZ-1 made Junya stop speaking and everyone else there waited until the Takahashi brothers parked their cars, climbed out of them and walked towards the group and while Seisuke looked like he was eager to find out what was going on, Kyosuke's stern look was a clear indication that Junya was in trouble.

'Junya…' he started.

'Kyosuke-san,' Kei stopped him, 'before that, there's something you need to listen to.'

'Yes,' Kazuya added, 'it's…'

'Let _me_ explain it,' Junya intervened confident that what he had to say would get him off the hook.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said a tad impatiently, 'what's going on?'

Everyone's attention focused back onto Junya who smirked a little as if he were enjoying it a lot.

'When I got here this afternoon…' he started.

'Afternoon?' Seisuke interrupted him, 'how fast did you go?'

'I averaged one hundred and sixty,' Junya replied looking proud though his smug smile faltered a little seeing Kyosuke's disapproving scowl, 'anyway,' he continued, 'I decided to stop for petrol just outside Nishi-ku and while I had my car serviced I overheard a conversation between two locals. At first I didn't pay attention seeing as they were talking about some road but then they started talking about some racer…'

'Wait a minute,' Kyosuke stopped him, 'we're not going to race this week.'

'What?' several people asked looking either dismayed, shocked or incredulous or a combination of the three.

'We are not going to race this week,' Kyosuke repeated speaking slower, 'we're on holidays and I want us to enjoy some time off, that includes our racing activities, besides even if we did find a racing team here, I very much doubt they'd have the time or disposition to race against a bunch of newbies on their home turf.'

'Newbies?' Kei asked him, 'we're not…'

'Here we are,' Kyosuke insisted, 'which is why I don't want anyone…'

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'please let Junya finish his explanation, then you can decide what to do, okay?'

Kyosuke looked like he was thinking about it when he caught sight of Kizuna who gave him an almost imperceptive nod. That made him give in and, nodding at his brother first, he glanced at Junya and said:

'Go on.'

'Okay,' Junya continued, 'they talked about some big race which will happen on Wednesday and I since managed to catch the name of the road, I got curious and I searched for it on the sat-nav: it's not far from here so I went there to check it out and it looked awesome, even during the day. It's about six and a half kilometres long, twisted and narrow as hell, most of it runs along the coast including its only straight sector. There are a couple of tunnels both of them cutting part of the coastal rock and a short bridge after which the road takes a steep climb up only to go abruptly downhill all the way to the end of the road right by a small beach. It really is an awesome road, unlike anything we've ever seen before.'

'Aniki…'

'We should go and check it out,' Kei decided.

'No,' Masato said firmly, 'not until you get your car fixed.'

'What's wrong with it?' Kyosuke asked sounding worried.

'It kept overheating and we had to…'

'Masato,' Kei barked glaring at his friend.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said raising his tone of voice a little, 'we just got here so we are not going anywhere else tonight. We're all tired and we need to get a good night sleep. I'm sure the road won't go anywhere even if we don't go there tonight so we'll go sometime tomorrow. As for now, all I want us to do is to get in the house, unpack and have something to eat before we all go to bed, is that clear to everyone?'

'Yes,' some of them said while others just nodded. Kei and Junya refused to reply.

'Is that clear?' he repeated for them.

'Fine,' Junya finally said.

'Kei?' Kyosuke insisted.

'Alright,' he half-grunted.

'About your car,' Kyosuke said calmly, 'I'll take a look at it first thing tomorrow, okay?'

'You don't…'

'We'll appreciate that,' Masato interrupted him, 'won't we?' he asked glaring at Kei.

'Yes,' the guy nearly hissed.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said this time looking at Kazuya, 'now, if you please show us the way…'

'I'll be happy to,' Kazuya replied looking slightly relieved.

Soon enough, everyone grabbed their bags, including Ryoko's large trolley, and all fourteen of them walked up the short lane which led to the massive front door. According to Kazuya, the four floored house was nearly one hundred years old and it had served as a western-standard hotel for many years. It had been then bought by Kazuya's grandfather during the fifties and after a major reconstruction it had been used as a summer house for the business associates of the Kameyama family. The last refurbishing had been completed only two years ago and now all thirty six rooms, twelve in each of the first, second and third floors, had its own fully appointed bathroom together with the usual commodities found in five star hotels.

'Oh wow,' Kizuna gasped looking around the hall. There were white marble columns and several crystal lamps hanging from both walls and ceiling which made the place look like one of the palaces she'd read about on fairytales. Her train of thought got interrupted by an old man rushing towards Kazuya.

'Good evening, Kazuya-bocchama.'

'Good evening, Inoue-san,' Kazuya said sounding awfully formal but offering a kind smile.

'I trust you all had a safe journey,' the butler asked him keeping a respectful tone of voice.

'We did,' Kazuya replied and, seeing as the older man was going to take his bag, he shook his head and said, 'Inoue-san, I thought we agreed that this was going to be a informal visit, therefore we will do most things ourselves and that very much includes carrying our own bags to our rooms.'

Inoue looked most unhappy to hear that but nodded and said:

'As you wish.'

Everyone observing them could tell that the butler seemed to be humouring Kazuya in what, it seemed, was the latest odd request coming from his young master. Then the old man noticed Junya and, after a spending a short time staring at him, he seemed to recognise him and after offering him a deep bow, he said:

'Good evening Junya-sama, it's been such a long time.'

'Yeah, it has, you haven't changed a bit though,' Junya replied looking a little embarrassed.

The butler looked like he wanted to say something else but, probably years of training, made him able to restrain himself. That allowed everyone to start moving inside the house and soon they all left behind the elevator the house had and started climbing up a wide staircase also made of marble. While they walked up, everyone noticed the paintings on the walls. Kizuna wasn't an expert but she could tell that they were expensive: one of them looked a lot like one of the works from that Spanish abstract painter called Picasso.

'Okay guys,' Kazuya said once they were all a the top of the stairs, 'since there are twelve rooms on each floor, I thought of letting the girls take the first two on this floor and us guys can all get the rooms at the third floor. Unless…'

'That'd be perfect,' Kyosuke interrupted him.

'Alright,' Kazuya said being careful not to smirk, 'in that case, girls the rooms are open but there should be a key in the first drawer of one of the bedside tables, feel free to lock yourselves in if you want some privacy. I'm thinking of getting some supper in about an hour or so, if you want, we can all meet downstairs then.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said.

'Thank you very much,' Ryoko added bowing a little.

'No problem,' Kazuya replied smiling a bit at the younger girl.

With that, the two girls walked down the corridor while the boys made their way up. Kizuna took the first room to the left while Ryoko got into the room next to hers. Inside, they both found a huge bathroom, a queen sized bed with a soft linen cover but the best was the small balcony from which one could wake up to a breathtaking ocean view. Kizuna was still recovering from the shock when she heard a knock on the door.

'Kizuna-san?'

'What's wrong?' she asked while opening the door.

'Nothing,' Ryoko said, 'I just wanted to ask you if you'll want to go for a swim later.'

'Now?' Kizuna asked, 'it's nearly dark, I…'

'Oh,' the girl gasped, 'that's right! I'm sorry, I'm so unconsidered sometimes, you're probably tired and…'

'No, no,' Kizuna hurried to say, 'that's not it, it's just that I didn't think anyone would want to do that, also, won't we bother the locals?'

'Why would we?' Ryoko asked back, 'it's a private beach, we can do pretty much whatever we want.'

'Ah,' Kizuna gasped, 'I didn't think of that either.'

'So,' Ryoko said, 'if you want to go for a swim later, put your bikini on now, this way we won't waste time.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said, 'I can put on that new one we bought together, what do you think?'

'Brilliant,' Ryoko said, 'ah,' she added, 'don't get dressed again later, just use your yukata, okay?'

'But…'

'Didn't you know that Kyosuke loves girls with the traditional summer robe?' Ryoko asked all too casually.

'No I didn't,' Kizuna said and, for the umpteenth time, she reminded herself not to let the younger girl talk.

'You won't need help with it, will you?' Ryoko asked.

'I think I'll be okay,' Kizuna replied smiling softly.

'Alright,' Ryoko said, 'I'll see you downstairs in a bit.'

Meanwhile, the boys were distributing themselves on the second floor. Kazuya had been afraid that they would fight for the sea-view rooms and was about to mention that they also had six more upstairs when he saw that everyone started choosing their rooms spontaneously: Kyosuke, Izawa, Kei, Eiji and Shuji all picked a sea-view one while the rest went to get the ones facing the huge garden. Kazuya glanced at Junya and, pointing at the door of the last sea-view room, he asked him:

'You want to take this one?'

'Nah, the sea is too noisy at night,' Junya replied.

'That's what your father always said,' Kazuya commented, 'he really doesn't like it here, does he?'

Junya didn't even bother with a reply and, instead, he went into the room right across the one occupied by Kei. Kyosuke let out a sigh and, shaking his head, he too went into his room while everyone else did the same and for the next few minutes, all of them spent a few minutes either unpacking or just resting their tired bodies by lying onto their beds. Predictably enough, Kyosuke was the first to be ready and less than half an hour later, he stepped out of his room, walked across the corridor and knocked on Seisuke's door just as he was about to fall asleep on top of his bed. Grunting a little, the future doctor got back up.

'What is it?' he asked while opening the door.

'Let's go downstairs,' Kyosuke said simply.

Feeling slightly annoyed at his brother, Seisuke mumbled something but Kyosuke was already walking down the stairs so, letting out a frustrated sigh, he followed him just as Masato and Izawa came out of their bedrooms too. All four of them walked together and they entered the common area, a very large and posh looking living room with the sixty inches TV, a mini bar and several plush sofas. On one of them, they found Kizuna and Ryoko busy reading some magazine, the two girls had clearly changed their clothes and seeing his girlfriend clad in a flowery light blue and white yukata, Kyosuke felt that his heart skipped a beat.

'Hi,' Ryoko greeted them.

'Why are you wearing that?' Seisuke asked her.

'This?' Ryoko asked pointing her own yukata, 'Kizuna-san and I are going to go for a swim later.'

'A swim?' Kyosuke asked, 'now?'

'Yep,' Ryoko said, 'I read somewhere the water is warmer during the night and I want to test that theory.'

'Kizuna…'

'I've never had an evening swim,' Kizuna said, 'not in the sea anyway, so yes, I want to try it too.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke replied, 'in that case, I might join you girls if you don't mind.'

'Of course not,' Ryoko said smiling happily, 'in fact,' she added glancing at Masato and Izawa, 'if you aren't too tired, why don't you all join us? It'll be more fun if we all go for a swim, don't you think?'

'The more the merrier, right?' Seisuke asked her.

'Exactly,' she replied giving him a sweet smile.

'Okay,' Masato said, 'I'll better go and get my trunks on,' he added.

Izawa didn't say anything but soon all four guys went back upstairs to get changed and, while they were at it, they also told everyone else about the girls' plans asking them if they wanted to join them too. In the end, everyone seemed rather enthusiastic of the idea and soon the whole of the Golden Arrows donned their swimming gear, excepting Junya and Kei who said they wanted to catch on some TV show that was on now.

'Fine,' Kyosuke said.

'I'll go and get Inoue-san to take our supper to the terrace,' Kazuya added, 'you two can get it from there.'

A few minutes later, most of the Golden Arrows were either eating the yummy sandwiches or the tasty tuna-mayo onigiri or gulfing down some of the iced tea they had brought with their late meal. A few others were already heading down the wooden planks which lead to the beach so that they could start by taking a dip, Ryoko and Kizuna were among the first to reach the shore and, once there, they both removed their yukata.

'Oh wow,' Eiji gasped while Yuta and Shige just stared in admiration.

'Hey,' Masato warned them, 'if Kyosuke-san catches you looking at his girlfriend like that…'

'Who is looking at Kizuna?' Eiji asked looking surprised, 'even _I'm_ not that mad.'

'Who are you…'

'Ryoko-chan is so cute,' Shige announced with a dreamy voice.

'Yes she is,' Yuta agreed, 'she's almost as cute as…'

'Guys,' Masato interrupted now sounding alarmed, 'she's got a boyfriend too.'

'Yeah,' Eiji said, 'but he isn't here, is he?'

'Eiji,' Masato said now definitely panicking, 'please stay away from her, I'm begging you, if Kyosuke-san or…'

'What's going on?' Kyosuke himself asked appearing out of nowhere.

'Nothing,' everyone replied right at the same time.

'We're going for a swim,' Masato then said and before their leader had any more time to question them, all four guys walked past the two girls and an instant later, they all splashed into the water so noisily that it made Kyosuke feel even more suspicious. At any rate, he soon became distracted seeing the next-to-nothing Kizuna and Ryoko were wearing and that made him rush towards the two girls with a frown on his forehead.

'What are you two wearing?' he demanded.

'A bikini?' Ryoko tried obviously having fun.

'You don't like it?' Kizuna asked with a tiny smile.

'Er…' he hesitated, 'yeah, it's just that…'

'We got them especially for this holiday,' Ryoko explained, 'it's a pity is so dark and you can't see it well…'

'I can see it well enough,' Kyosuke said sounding a little mad, 'and so does everyone else, I…'

'Let's go for a swim,' Kizuna stopped him and, taking him by his arm, she started making him walk towards the water. She turned round only just in time to exchange a wink with Ryoko who nodded her approval.

Just then and using up the chance that Kyosuke was kept busy by Kizuna and seeing that the rest of the Golden Arrows had now joined them in the water thus keeping each other distracted, Eiji slipped past Masato's sight and went to find Ryoko who was now drying herself after having been in the water for less than a minute.

'Not your cup of tea?' he asked her.

'Not really,' she confessed while she sat on top of her towel.

'If you want we can go inside,' Eiji suggested.

'No, thanks,' Ryoko replied, 'I'll just sit here for a while.'

'Alright,' Eiji said, 'I'll keep you company.'

'Don't trouble yourself, I'll…' she started saying but Eiji just sat down next to her.

'You know,' he said, 'I know you must be feeling lonely without your boyfriend and…'

'I'm not feeling lonely,' she lied, 'there are a lot of people here with me, my cousins, Kizuna-san and…'

'That's true,' he admitted, 'but that's not the same, is it? I too wish my girlfriend was here, you know?'

'Why don't you call her?' Ryoko suggested calmly.

'I might do that,' Eiji said vaguely.

'You better do that,' Ryoko insisted, 'in fact, I'm going to call Akito now so, if you please excuse me.'

'Touché,' Eiji said with his usual studied grace and, getting up, he started making his way back towards the house. He hadn't reached the flight of stairs which led to the terrace when he heard Junya and Kei there speaking about something in hushed voices, as if they were plotting something. Meanwhile this happened Ryoko, still feeling a little unsettled by her short conversation with Eiji, pulled her mobile phone out of the small pocket in her yukata and, pressing the speed-dial button, she called Akito's number hoping that her boyfriend would still be awake.

'Ryoko?' he said sounding a little surprised.

'Hi,' she said, 'I didn't wake you up, did I?'

'Not at all,' Akito replied, 'I'm watching a movie with my parents.'

'Ah,' Ryoko gasped and, for some reason, she suddenly didn't know what else to say.

'Ryoko,' Akito said instead, 'are you alright?'

'Yes,' she replied, 'I'm…I just…'

'You're already in Fukuoka, aren't you?' Akito asked her.

'Yes,' she repeated, 'I miss you,' she finally admitted, 'I miss you so much Akito and I really wish you were here.'

'I know,' he said sounding very serious, 'I would love to be there with you too, you know that.'

The two spent a few moments in silence during Ryoko started regretting calling him at all seeing how oddly awkward their conversation had become. Feeling very upset about it, she decided to put an end to the call:

'I better go now, I'll take heaps of pictures of Fukuoka, just like I promised, okay?'

'That'd be great,' Akito replied.

'Alright,' Ryoko said, 'I'm…I'm going to hang up now.'

'Okay,' Akito replied.

'Er…'

'I love you,' he finally said and a pleased smile appeared on her face, 'you know that, don't you?'

'I do,' Ryoko said sounding infinitely happier, 'I love you too.'

'I know,' Akito replied and he too sounded like he was smiling.

After bidding each other goodnight, they closed the call and Ryoko found herself hugging her mobile phone to her chest feeling slightly less depressed after having heard Akito's voice saying that he loved her. She felt a little stupid for being so insecure about that but ever since the announcement of Akito's debut in F3, she had started feeling like he was drifting away from her and she was beginning to fear that he'd soon be out of her reach if she didn't do anything to prevent it. That thought scared her so much that she shivered.

'Hey,' Kizuna said walking towards her, 'are you alright?'

'Yeah,' Ryoko replied all-too quickly, 'I'm just a bit cold,' she said and, to prove her point, she got up to put her yukata back on while Kizuna dried herself with her towel, 'are you going back inside?' Ryoko asked her.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'I'm a little tired after all,' she said, 'besides, Kyosuke is going to announce the results.'

A few minutes later, they were all gathered around the common room with Kyosuke sitting in the middle of it with his laptop in his hands while he finished compiling all the data he'd extracted from the memory cards.

'Oh,' he gasped, 'this is a surprise.'

'Did we win?' Seisuke asked him.

'No,' Kyosuke replied frowning a little, 'we didn't.'

'We didn't?' Seisuke asked sounding both surprised and annoyed, 'after all everything you…'

'They did,' Kyosuke said interrupting him. Everyone glanced at the direction he was pointing and they were all stunned to see him indicating the pair formed by Yuta and Shigeru who looked to be even more in shock than anyone else.

'Us?' Yuta managed to ask.

'Are you sure?' Shigeru frowned.

'Yes, I'm sure,' Kyosuke said.

'What about us?' Shuji asked.

'That's right,' Tatsuya added, 'we travelled with them for over half of the trip.'

'In fact,' Kyosuke said, 'that's what's allowed you two to come second. Your regularity improved the moment you joined them. Judging by the figures I have here, you started keeping a steadier rhythm right after that.'

'But we weren't even trying,' Yuta objected, 'I…we were just talking all the time, weren't we?'

'I think that's precisely how you did it,' Masato reasoned still looking rather incredulous.

'So,' Seisuke said feeling upset, 'it seems like too much planning isn't useful at all, is it Aniki?'

'That's got nothing to do with it,' Kyosuke replied, 'it was just a very fortunate coincidence that they managed to keep a regular pace. You all know that relying solely on luck is never a good idea, nevertheless, they have won the race and therefore the prize is theirs.'

'Prize?' Izawa asked.

'The winners,' Kyosuke explained, 'will get five free advanced driving lessons at the Centre with Takumi-san.'

'I wish I had known that,' Kizuna commented sounding disappointed.

'Me too,' Seisuke complained.

'You're not the only ones,' Masato said while Izawa nodded his agreement.

'Why didn't you tell us earlier?' Kazuya asked him, 'we would have taken everything a little more seriously.'

'That's precisely the reason why I didn't want you to know,' Kyosuke replied, 'none of you should need an incentive in order to take things seriously. Since most of you just fooled around, it's your own fault if you didn't win.'

'We didn't win either,' Seisuke reminded him a little too harshly.

'But it wasn't for lack of trying,' Kyosuke countered.

'Alright,' Ryoko said getting up all of a sudden, 'I don't know you but I'm very sleepy so I'm off to bed.'

'Me too,' Kizuna added not liking either the way the two brothers seemed on the verge of having an argument.

The two girls stood there for a short while before everyone took the hint and, slowly, they all started making their way up to their rooms including Seisuke who still looked a bit angry. Kyosuke walked Kizuna and Ryoko towards their rooms and, after the latter bid them goodnight, the couple stayed outside of Kizuna's bedroom looking at each other while they waited for everyone to be upstairs. Only then, Kizuna felt free to say:

'I hope you don't take this the wrong way but…'

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke interrupted her, 'I know what you're going to say.'

'Do you?' Kizuna challenged him.

'Yes,' Kyosuke said, 'and I'm going to try, I promise.'

'What are you talking about?' Kizuna asked him.

'You want me to relax a little, right?' he asked her looking slightly confused.

'No,' Kizuna replied, 'I know that's mission impossible,' she added with brutal honesty.

'It's not…'

'It is,' Kizuna insisted, 'but that's not what I wanted to say.'

'What is it then?' Kyosuke asked her softly.

'I wanted to ask you if you want to come in for a while,' Kizuna said pointing at the door trying not to blush.

'Oh,' he gasped.

'If you think it's a bad idea, I…'

'No,' Kyosuke stopped her gently, 'it's not a bad idea, it's just that…' he hesitated, 'I think this is…'

'I don't want us to do anything,' Kizuna hurried to say, 'I think it'd be kind of wrong with everyone around.'

'Me too,' Kyosuke admitted looking a little relieved. Kizuna saw that and, feeling a little upset, she said:

'It was a bad idea, I better…'

Kyosuke took her by her shoulders and pulled her into a hug.

'It's not a bad idea,' he said speaking over her head, 'I've been dying to be alone with you for a bit.'

'Really?' Kizuna asked, her voice muffled by his chest.

'Yes,' he confirmed, 'you have no idea of how difficult it was to keep my foot off the accelerator all day long.'

'I think I do,' Kizuna countered laughing softly, 'and I think that, as usual, you've been trying too hard.'

'I think so too,' Kyosuke admitted pulling her away a little without letting her go, 'and I think I should apologise to Seisuke, I kind of get the feeling he didn't have a lot of fun during this trip because of me.'

'Yeah,' Kizuna agreed, 'but you can do that later, can't you?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied then, changing topic, he added, 'you look amazing with that yukata, you know?'

Kizuna just smiled at him and, taking his hand, the two went into her room where Kyosuke spent a long time showing Kizuna just how much he liked her dressed like that and, an hour later, while Kyosuke slept next to her still wearing his trunks, Kizuna made a mental note to thank Ryoko for suggesting it in the first place.

Some hours later, while everyone slept more or less soundly, two doors quietly opened in the third floor and, just as stealthily, Junya and Kei padded out of their rooms as silently as possible. They were especially careful when passing by Kyosuke's room and only when they were all the way down the stairs they allowed themselves to breathe. They had just stepped into the reception area when they found someone there.

'Geez,' Junya complained feeling his heart had just stopped.

'Eiji,' Kei hissed, 'what in the hell are you doing in here?'

'Waiting for you,' Eiji replied getting up from one of the comfy armchairs there, 'you two are late.'

'What are…'

'Junya,' Eiiji stopped him, 'you two should be a lot more careful when you're plotting secret little missions.'

'Eiji…'

'Don't worry Kei,' the guy said, 'I have no intention of telling anyone about your plans.'

'What do you want to do then?' Kei asked him.

'I'd rather join you, if you don't mind,' Eiji replied.

'But…'

'It's alright,' Junya intervened, 'he can come too.'

'Cool,' Eiji said looking excited.

With that decided, they walked out of the house being super careful not to make too much noise when opening and closing the big door at the entrance and, with that done, they all started walking down the lane keeping their eyes and ears open so that they wouldn't be caught. It was thanks to that that all three of them saw a lone figure standing next to his car, as if he too had been waiting for them for quite a long time.

'About bloody time,' he said.

'Seisuke,' Junya said, his voice barely concealing his panic and a trace of anger, 'what are…'

'I knew you'd ignore Aniki's orders,' he said.

'And what are you going to do about it?' Kei challenged him.

'Nothing at all,' Seisuke said coolly, 'I take you're going to check that road out, right?'

'We are,' Junya confirmed ignoring Kei's glare, 'what?' he added with a smirk, 'want to join the fun too?'

'I do,' was Seisuke's surprising reply, 'do you mind?'

'Of course not,' Junya replied sounding rather amused, 'but aren't you worried about what Kyosuke will say?'

'No,' Seisuke lied, 'and in any case, he doesn't need to find out, does he?'

'I guess not,' Junya replied looking at him in admiration, 'in that case, you're more than welcome to join us.'

'Great,' Seisuke said, 'now, I've been wondering, how in the hell are we going to get the cars out of here?'

'Easy,' Kei replied, 'well take it in turns to push them out of the car park and as soon as they're on the road, I think we can safely turn the engines on and…'

'Why making things so complicated?' Eiji asked all of a sudden.

'How else do you want to drive out of here without Kyosuke hearing the engines?' Junya asked him.

'Kyosuke-san won't hear a thing,' Eiji replied, 'not when Kizuna-chan's keeping him busy.'

'What?' Seisuke said feeling a little grossed out, 'how the hell do you know that?'

'I saw him walking into her room earlier on and he hasn't come out of it since,' Eiji explained.

'Oh gosh,' Kei complained, 'I didn't want to know that.'

'Neither did I,' Junya agreed.

'You know what?' Seisuke asked Eiji, 'you really should mind your own business a bit more.'

Eiji smirked at him and, with that, he walked towards his NSX and, climbing into it, he waited for everyone to do the same, turning the engine on at the same time as the other three drivers. Then they all drove out of the car park as fast as possible. Eiji was his usual carefree self, Kei and Junya were loving every minute of their small rebellion while Seisuke did his best to ignore the little voice telling him that he was making a huge mistake and if he had any sense at all, he would drive back into the car park at this precise instant.

'No way,' he said to himself in defiance.

After the horrible road trip Kyosuke had put him through, he was dying to have some fun and if that road was anywhere near as challenging as Junya had told them, he couldn't think of a better way to release a little bit of the frustration he'd accumulated during the whole day so, steeling himself against the steering wheel, he kept on following Junya's S18 and Kei's EVO while Eiji remained right behind him.

The four cars got to the start of the road just as the clock in the RZ-1's dashboard indicated three o'clock in the morning but Seisuke didn't see that because his attention was focused right onto the stretch of road he could see barely illuminated by both his car's headlights as well as the moonlight. The great succession of corners wouldn't have been anything special if they hadn't had a scary looking wall of rock on one side and an even scarier cliff on the other. The road was also so impossibly narrow that if he wasn't careful, he knew he would end up plunging down into the sea. Just thinking about that gave him goose bumps.

'Doctor to everyone, do any of you copy?'

'I copy you,' Kei replied.

'This road is great,' Seisuke said.

'I told you,' Junya added, it seemed like he was going to add something else when, instead, he swore.

'What's…' Seisuke started asking but looking further ahead he answered his own question.

A couple of cars were driving towards them at an impossibly fast speed and, instinctively, they all started trying to find somewhere to pull over. Unfortunately, the road really was too narrow and the only thing they could do was to stop their cars as close to the wall as possible and turning all four sets of hazard lights on. Seisuke started praying that the two racing cars would see them when, thankfully, he saw them slowing down, stopping just ahead of Junya's S18 who, for some reason, decided to climb out of his car.

Sensing trouble, Seisuke also got out of his car while Eiji and Kei were doing the same. They also saw the other two drivers getting out of their cars and Seisuke was beginning to regret coming here when he saw that one of the two unknown racers was a girl, a very good looking one judging from what he could see with the inside light of her car. It was her ride which surprised him the most: a beautiful metallic red Mazda RZ-1, just the colour his should have been if...

'Who are you?' she wanted to know.

'Why are you racing on our road?' the guy asked.

'We weren't racing,' Seisuke said before anyone else, 'we're just tourists and we just wanted to go out for a quiet drive.'

'Seis…'

'But we'll just leave now,' he continued, ignoring Junya's attempt to protest.

'Not so quickly,' the girl said, she then walked away from her car and towards them.

'Look,' Seisuke insisted, 'we really didn't know this was your road, the last thing we wanted was to…'

'Is that yours?' the girl asked him pointing at his white RZ-1.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'but…'

'Ryu,' she said obviously talking to her friend, 'this must be my lucky night.'

'Sae,' the guy called Ryu said sounding a little panicked, 'please don't tell me you want to race him too?'

'I think I do,' she replied, 'he did say they wanted to go for a drive,' she added conversationally.

'Excuse me,' Seisuke said, 'I…we're not…'

'You're not what?' she challenged him raising a very fine eyebrow.

'We're not racers,' Seisuke lied so blatantly that Junya nearly chocked.

'Really?' Sae asked with a little laugh, 'I think your car disagrees with you.'

'Er…'

'You know,' she said, 'I'm feeling generous tonight so you can give me your answer on Wednesday. I'll be racing here at around midnight, just ask to speak to Ichihara Sae, that's my name by the way.'

'You're _that_ Ichihara?' Junya suddenly asked her.

'Yes,' she replied, 'I thought you said you were tourists,' she said eyeing them suspiciously.

'I heard your name at a petrol station,' Junya explained, 'that's all, I…'

'It doesn't matter,' she stopped him, 'like I said, I'm feeling very generous tonight so you're free to go home now. We're in the middle of a training session though so I'd appreciate it if you didn't get in the way.'

'Of course,' Seisuke replied and, for some reason, the girl looked at him for a little longer than necessary.

'I can't wait to hear your reply,' she said in a very flirty way, 'I hope you won't disappoint me.'

With that, she walked back to her car and, climbing into it, she turned the engine back on and waited until the guy called Ryu did the same. Seisuke, Junya, Kei and Eiji took that as a sign to get back into their own rides and, soon enough, they drove past them while they tried to find some space to do a U-turn eventually finding an opening just before one of the tunnels. Shortly after, they saw the other two cars driving past them at an absurdly fast speed. Junya only broke the radio silence when they got closer to the parking area.

'Seisuke,' he said, 'what are you going to do now?'

'About what?' Seisuke asked.

'About the challenge. You're going to need to tell Kyosuke about it,' Junya pointed out.

'I know that ,' Seisuke replied sounding a little miserable, 'I just need to figure out how to do it.'

'You better figure out quickly,' Kei intervened and Seisuke was going to ask him why when he saw yet another RZ-1 driving towards them. Unfortunately for him, this time it was the one belonging to his older brother.

'Oh shit,' Seisuke muttered.

_To be continued…_


	30. Chapter Twenty Nine

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Twenty Nine_

Fighting the urge to just floor it, Seisuke stopped his car right behind Kei's EVO while he watched with mounting dread as the yellow RZ-1 pulled over the other side of the road. Seisuke knew he only had a few seconds to come up with the mother of all the excuses in order to justify what he had done and was so focused on that that he almost failed to notice when everyone else started getting out of their cars.

Very reluctantly, Seisuke too climbed out of his Mazda, just in time to see his older brother crossing the road on foot and, even in the darkness, he could tell that Kyosuke was beyond furious. Swallowing hard, Seisuke did his best to appear reasonably calm while his brain raced trying to figure out a way out of this huge mess.

'Aniki…' he started.

'Be quiet,' Kyosuke said with such an eerily cold but even tone of voice that it made Seisuke shiver.

'Ani…'

'I said,' Kyosuke repeated marking each of his words, 'be quiet. I'll have words with you later,' he stopped only to look at Junya, Kei and Eiji who were awfully quiet as if, at long last, they had realised the gravity of what they had done, 'now,' he said glancing at Junya, 'I expected much better from you, as the oldest member of our team, I hoped you would understand that the reason why I didn't want us to go out tonight was because not only we were tired but also our cars needed a break too. Especially yours after what you've put the poor thing through coming down here. As for you,' he added talking to Kei, 'you clearly don't care about your car either and I'm this close from kicking you out of the team,' Kei looked shocked, 'but I'm not one who likes making decisions with a hot head and I also believe in giving people a second chance.'

'Kyosuke…' Junya started.

'I'm not done yet,' Kyosuke interrupted him, he then looked at Eiji and said, 'I never expected you to be a responsible person but I did think you would be a lot smarter than to join in something like this. I'm frankly very disappointed in all of you for thinking you could all leave without any of us realising. Even if I hadn't heard your engines, which I obviously did, some of your team members were awake and…'

'Yuta and Shige,' Kei said.

'It doesn't matter who they were,' Kyosuke countered, 'what matters is that it worried me sick when I saw that you had taken your car knowing how it had had overheating problems. What would you have done if it had blown up on you? Did you even think of the consequences of having such a major breakdown while being over one thousand kilometres away from home?'

'Er…'

'No,' Kyosuke replied to his own question, 'you weren't thinking about that. In fact, clearly, none of you were thinking about anything tonight which is the only reason that can even remotely justify what you've done.'

'We're sorry,' Junya said really meaning it.

'Yes,' Kei agreed.

'It was a bad idea,' Eiji added, 'please, forgive us.'

Kyosuke glanced at him and, for once in his life, the guy seemed genuinely serious. The only one who still hadn't said anything was Seisuke and, looking at him, Kyosuke saw that his younger brother had lost his usual grin having been replaced by a very worried and scared expression which made Kyosuke feel so bad that he was unable to keep his gaze on him, deciding to switch to the other three members of his team.

'Let's go back,' he told them.

'Kyosuke,' Junya said, 'there's something else we…'

'Junya!' Seisuke exclaimed.

'What is it now?' Kyosuke asked allowing himself to sound just a tad impatient.

'Er…'

'Seisuke,' Kyosuke warned him.

'We…well, I got challenged to a race,' Seisuke said as quickly as he could.

Kyosuke's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before his expression returned to his usual stoic self.

'Let's go back,' he then repeated.

'Aniki, I…'

'Don't make me say it again,' Kyosuke said with an icy tone of voice.

Not wanting to push their luck any further, all four of them went back into their cars feeling as bad as if they had been caught by their parents while doing something very naughty. Meanwhile, Kyosuke had so much on his own plate that he simply refused to think about any of it until they all got back into the mansion where, predictably enough, everyone was awake waiting to see what was going to happen. Kazuya and Masato got up from their seats and while Kazuya limited himself with looking at Junya in disapproval, Masato smacked both Kei and Eiji on the back of their heads in a really painful way while he dressed both of them down.

'What the fuck did you two do?' he shouted, 'what did Kyosuke-san say about going out tonight?'

'That hurt,' Kei complained.

'And the way you made us worry about your EVO? Don't you think that hurt us?' Masato challenged him.

'We're sorry,' Eiji said, 'we already said that and…'

'Not sorry enough,' Masato barked angrily, 'you both know what I would do if I were Kyosuke-san…'

'Masato,' Kyosuke intervened, 'I want to think they understand and that they won't do it ever again.'

'I bloody hope they don't,' Kazuya said being unusually harsh.

'Anyway,' Kizuna said, 'they're all back and thankfully safe and sound, it really is very late and we ought to go back to bed. I'm sure that we will all be a lot more level-headed tomorrow morning after some sleep.'

'I agree with that,' Shuji added while Tatsuya nodded his agreement too.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'everyone, off to bed, excepting you,' he added glancing at Seisuke who stopped half way through his step. He then looked at Kei and said, 'I want to take a look at your car first thing tomorrow.'

'Okay,' Kei said not even dreaming of refusing.

'Kizuna,' he then said, 'where's Ryoko?'

'She's gone back to sleep,' his girlfriend replied.

'That's good,' Kyosuke said, he stared at her for an extra second before he broke eye contact so that she could go back upstairs with the rest of the team then, taking a deep breath, he said, 'let's go to the terrace.'

'Aniki…'

'I need some fresh air,' he said.

While everyone else went back into their rooms, the two brothers went out of the house and, once at the terrace, Kyosuke leant against the marble balustrade and stared at the dark sea in front of him for a few moments meanwhile he sorted his thoughts then, turning round, he saw that Seisuke was just standing there trying very hard to pretend he wasn't nervous. Kyosuke wanted to laugh at how well he knew him.

'I'm really sorry,' he said instead.

'What?' Seisuke asked, 'Aniki, I…'

'I'm really sorry,' Kyosuke repeated, 'I know I probably ruined the road trip for you and that you probably wish you had been paired with anyone else but me. I'm also sorry that I'm incapable of taking things easy and I wanted to have this conversation with you tomorrow morning where I wanted to offer to go and check that road out with you as a way to make up for spoiling the first day of your holidays.'

'Aniki…' Seisuke nearly breathed, he had never felt worse in his whole life.

'You know,' Kyosuke continued, 'I kind of expected Junya and Kei and even Eiji to disobey me, I hoped they wouldn't, but I knew that that road sounded too awesome for them to pass on the chance to go and explore it before anyone else, but when I heard the engine of your car driving away, I seriously didn't know what to think. Seisuke, please tell me that you did it only because you were mad at me because of the trip.'

'Would that make any difference?' Seisuke asked him sounding miserable.

'It would,' Kyosuke replied, 'because if that's the reason why, then I'll understand but if you just went because you couldn't control your curiosity or worse, because you thought it would be fun going against…'

'No,' Seisuke interrupted him, 'it wasn't curiosity and it wasn't because I thought it'd be fun going against your orders. I was mad at you for…well, a lot of things and I thought it would make me feel better if I went.'

'Did it?' Kyosuke asked.

'No,' Seisuke admitted, 'I'm really sorry for what I did.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'I guess we're even now.'

'Not quite,' Seisuke disagreed, 'we still went against your orders and you could kick us out of the team.'

'I could,' Kyosuke conceded, 'and to be honest with you, I'm very tempted with Kei, the guy simply doesn't seem to care about his ride and I find that unforgivable. I'm going to talk to him tomorrow to see if I can talk some sense into him and I'll decide what to do after I hear what he has to say.'

'What about me?' Seisuke asked him.

'Seisuke,' he said, 'you're my brother and even though I have to be impartial, you and I are the co-founders of this team and to be very honest, I'd rather dissolve the Golden Arrows than to have it without you in it.'

'Aniki…'

'Which means,' Kyosuke continued, 'that you better never pull a stunt like that again or it's all over.'

Seisuke's shoulders visibly slumped as if he suddenly felt the extra weight of this huge responsibility.

'I'm glad to see we understand each other,' Kyosuke said with a tiny smile.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said speaking very seriously, 'what about the challenge? I mean, I…'

'Do you want to do it?' Kyosuke asked him evenly.

'Do I have a choice?' Seisuke asked back then, seeing his brother nod, he said, 'I think I do. That road really is amazing and we didn't even get to see all of it. It's even narrower than Mt Usui and the corners...I got the goose bumps, I can't even begin to imagine how it must be like in a proper race.'

'Who is your challenger?' Kyosuke asked.

'No idea,' Seisuke replied, 'her name is Ichihara Sae…'

'It's a girl?' Kyosuke interrupted him.

His expression made Seisuke let out a soft chuckle: his older brother really had a thing for female racers.

'Yes,' the future doctor replied, 'it's a girl and I think she's a very fast one but that's not the best bit.'

'What is it then?' Kyosuke asked clearly taking the bait.

'She drives an SF3Z, a red one,' Seisuke replied.

'Red?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied, 'just like the one I wanted, remember? Before I saw the white one.'

'I remember,' Kyosuke confirmed, 'so, you really want to race her.'

'Yes,' Seisuke said, 'but if you let me accept the challenge everyone is going to think you're playing favourites and…'

'They won't,' Kyosuke stopped him, 'I assume this Ichihara girl is involved in Wednesday's race.'

'She is the one racing,' Seisuke replied.

'Well,' Kyosuke continued, 'then we'll go and watch that race, if she's half as good as you think she is, then I don't see how anyone in the team will think I'm playing favourites for letting you race her, after all, as a racer not accepting a challenge is hardly an option, is it?'

'No, it isn't,' Seisuke agreed.

'Now,' Kyosuke said, 'I'm off to bed…'

'Yours?' Seisuke asked before he could help himself.

Kyosuke did a small double take but recovering as fast as usual, he turned round and walked back towards the house clearly pretending he hadn't understood the question. Seisuke could have punched for being such an idiot and that, together with the conversation he'd just had with his brother made him feel very anxious thinking that, the next time he screwed things up this badly, it would be the end of the Golden Arrows.

A few hours later, while everyone had just started either getting up or having breakfast, Kei walked back into the house after having spent nearly two hours helping Kyosuke while they worked on the EVO. Masato was going to speak when he noticed the awed expression on Kei's usually bitter face and that made him wait until the guy was sitting down at the table where Masato and Izawa were finishing their morning meal.

'What happened?' Masato asked him.

'Is your car…' Izawa started.

'The car's fine now,' Kei replied.

'Then what happened?' Masato pressed on.

'I will only say this,' Kei replied, 'I'll never challenge Kyosuke-san's authority ever again.'

'What did he...'

Izawa's question got interrupted when Kyosuke himself stepped into the room together with Kazuya and Seisuke who looked like he hadn't slept at all, the three of them sat at the table and they started having their breakfast. Masato noticed the glance Kei exchanged with their leader and, once again, he wondered what Kyosuke had told Kei which had caused such a huge impression to his very stoic friend. Alas, he guessed that the contents of their conversation would probably remain a secret between the two of them.

Meanwhile this happened, up on the first floor Ryoko was in her room applying some transparent lip gloss when she heard a knock on her door. Replacing the lip gloss in her make up box, she went to let Kizuna in thinking that the girl probably wanted some advice about what to wear when she saw that the person standing outside her room wasn't Kyosuke's girlfriend but, rather, Eiji sporting an awfully serious expression.

'Good morning,' he said.

'Hi,' she replied crossing her arms onto her chest defensively, he noticed that and that made him frown.

'Listen,' he said, 'I just wanted to make sure you didn't take it seriously.'

'What do you mean?' Ryoko asked him still sounding rather cautious.

'I wasn't serious when I came on to you,' Eiji said, 'I hope you didn't think I was.'

'No, I didn't,' she lied, 'but again, you never are,' she added before she could stop herself.

'Excuse me?' Eiji asked her.

'Eiji-san,' she said, 'I might be out of line for saying this but I think you ought to take things a bit more seriously, beginning with your girlfriend. I don't know her or the kind of relationship you have with her but I'm pretty sure no girl likes having her boyfriend flirting with other girls, whether it's seriously or not.'

'But…'

'If you really care about her,' she continued, 'even if it's just a fraction of what you obviously care about yourself, then do her a favour and start treasuring her feelings a bit more. I'm sure you'll both be happier.'

Eiji, for once, was speechless but that didn't last for too long. He placed his hand onto his heart and said:

'I'll do my best.'

'I'm glad to hear that,' Ryoko replied.

Eiji nodded and just as he walked away from her room and down the stairs, Kizuna stepped out of hers.

'What was he doing here?' she asked Ryoko.

'Nothing,' Ryoko replied.

'He hasn't bothered you in any way, has he?' Kizuna asked her frowning in a very protective concern.

'Of course not,' she lied, 'but let's go downstairs, I'm starving!'

Kizuna looked at her as if she were considering her options but, thankfully for Ryoko, she decided not to question her further and waited until Ryoko got her hair up on a long ponytail and then, grabbing a very light white cardigan, just in case she said, they were ready to join whoever was having breakfast downstairs.

Half an hour later, they were all gathered around the common room ready to discuss their plans for the day.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'I know that keeping you guys away from that road after what happened last night is mission impossible and I know better than to expect any of you to care much about Fukuoka's many tourist attractions until you get to inspect that road with your own cars. That said, I'd like to ask Kazuya to list the options we do have and maybe this way we won't end up invading the road all at the same time.'

'I'll be happy to,' Kazuya said, 'to begin with, we could stay here and just go to the beach for a swim and maybe even get a bit of a tan. If not, there are plenty of things to see in Fukuoka, starting by the ferris wheel you all saw while driving down here. If not, there's the Hakata Bay or Canal City and the Tenjin district where there are a lot of shops and plenty of places where they serve very yummy food.'

Everyone except Ryoko looked a lot less than enthusiastic about the idea.

'I won't even mention the museums then,' Kyosuke said looking a little resigned, 'alright,' he added glancing at Kazuya, 'at least we've tried. I take then that we'll all go and check the road now, hopefully, at this time of the morning, we won't run onto any racing teams, however, we still need to be very careful, okay?'

This time everyone nodded more or less vigorously. Except Ryoko who looked very downcast.

'Kyosuke,' Kizuna said glancing quickly at the younger girl, 'I think I'll take Ryoko to the city.'

'Are you sure?' Kyosuke said but seeing Ryoko's face lightening up was enough of an answer.

'I am,' Kizuna replied nevertheless then, not giving the time Ryoko to even open her mouth, she told her, 'but before we go you have to promise me that we'll only visit one of the shopping areas and that you won't force us to spend the whole day there.'

'I promise,' Ryoko said too quickly.

'I mean it,' Kizuna said firmly, 'no more than one hour of shopping, okay?'

'Two,' Ryoko bartered.

'One,' Kizuna insisted.

'One and a quarter,' Ryoko countered speaking very quickly.

'One and a half,' Kizuna offered.

'Deal,' Ryoko sentenced with a nod.

'No, wait, I…'

'We just made a deal,' Ryoko pointed out, 'everyone heard you saying one and a half hours, right guys?'

'Alright, alright,' poor Kizuna surrendered, 'one and a half.'

'Thanks!' Ryoko said smiling sweetly, 'I better go and finish getting ready then.'

She rushed out of the room before anyone had the time to say anything, leaving Kizuna feeling stunned.

'I thought she said one hour and _three_ quarters,' she told Kyosuke who looked at her sympathetically.

'God help us all if she ever gets into politics,' Kazuya declared solemnly.

That made everyone burst out laughing and, for the first time since they'd arrived, they really felt like they were on holidays. Kyosuke was very grateful to see that almost everyone had a smile on their faces and decided to forget what had happened in the past twenty four hours hoping he too could start relaxing a bit.

A few minutes later, they were all inside their cars and while the two girls drove into the city with the 350Z, the other twelve members of the Golden Arrows were already on their way to the by now infamous road, with the two RZ-1s following Junya's S18. Kazuya was just behind the three followed by the team's two Vera, the three BT5s, Yuta's S17 travelled after them and, this time, Kei and Eiji chose to be the last ones.

Junya, who had already seen the road, couldn't help but to be nevertheless impressed by the sheer beauty of the view, not only of the strait of sea which separated Japan and South Korea but also the beautiful, green land he could see on the left of the road which, in spite of everything, still was the main attraction:

The narrow strip of tarmac was optimistically supposed to service both ways but in several of the corners it simply became impossible for two cars to pass each other so, very often, they found that they had to stop in order to let incoming traffic through. Then there was the fact that as they drove on and the road started going uphill, the cliff became alarmingly high, to the point that the sea down below could no longer be seen.

After that and just as one didn't expect it to get any better, they had the two tunnels, one of them was long enough to require for the headlights to be on while the other, shorter than the first, had some sort of windows cut into the rock which allowed for some natural light to get inside the tunnel. That special feature made all twelve cars slow down a bit so that they could admire the view from in between the columns: it really was breathtaking.

Just in case this wasn't enough, after that second tunnel and the only straight section, they found the end of a river as it got to the open sea which had a short bridge connecting both banks and, right after that, there was the very steep climb Junya had talked about. It ended just as abruptly as he'd warned them and, as if it were a rollercoaster, it then went down the hill in a series of corners that made it look a bit like Mt Akina.

At the end of that gorgeous road, they arrived at a small beach which had a reasonably big parking area which every single one of the Golden Arrows used to turn around and, without needing any input to coordinate themselves, they all had the same idea to do the whole thing all over again, repeating the process no less than four times before they all decided to stop back at the beach's parking area to rest a bit.

'I think I'm in love,' Kazuya said.

'Me too,' Seisuke agreed, 'Aniki, what do you think?'

'Do you need to ask?' Kyosuke asked with a smirk.

'I wish we had a road like this in Gunma,' Masato commented.

'Well,' Izawa countered being reasonable, 'it's not like we don't have interesting roads now, is it?'

'No,' Masato agreed, 'but nothing like this, I mean…the sea…that's something we don't have.'

'That's true,' Izawa accepted.

'At any rate,' Junya said talking to the Takahashi brothers, 'what are we going to do about the race?'

'Race?' Kazuya asked, 'what race?'

'It's a long story,' Kyosuke said, 'and I think we'll get the answer to that question on Wednesday because, unless any of you has anything against it, I'm thinking of going to see what the locals do with this road.'

Needless to say, none of them were crazy enough to oppose themselves to those plans and, a little over thirty six hours later, at eleven o'clock on Wednesday evening to be exact, they were once again driving along the road only that, this time, there were an impressive number of people scattered along basically every possible place in which there was enough space in between the fragile guardrails and the rocky wall.

'Doctor to Arrows,' Seisuke said, 'these people are nuts.'

'Great diagnosis, Doc,' Kazuya replied.

'I'm serious,' Seisuke insisted.

'So am I,' Kazuya replied, 'I wouldn't stand in there not even if they paid me a gazillion yens to do it.'

Everyone silently agreed and when, a few minutes later, they all reached the beach, they saw that the crowd gathered there was even bigger than the ones they'd seen at the galleries and it started dawning onto them that whatever was going on in there was big enough to attract an enormous amount of people.

Unfortunately for the Golden Arrows, the arrival of thirteen unknown cars didn't go unnoticed either and very soon everyone stopped chatting to see who the strangers were. Thankfully for them, one of them was Sae Ichihara who did a double take when, together with Seisuke's white RZ-1, she also saw the yellow one.

'Hello,' she said to them.

'Hi,' Seisuke replied.

'Welcome to Ocean Drive,' she replied offering him a smile, 'it's not the official name,' she explained, 'it's just the nickname some racing team gave it sometime during the seventies, or was the eighties?' she asked.

'The seventies,' a tall guy replied, 'it was before they rebuilt it to make it wider.'

'Wider?' Junya couldn't help but to ask.

'Oh yes,' Sae replied, 'Ocean Drive used to be a one way only road built to come to this beach. But I don't think you came here to learn about the road's boring history. You came here to give me an answer, right?'

'Sort of,' Kyosuke said speaking for the first time.

'Who are you?' Sae asked him.

'He's my older brother,' Seisuke replied, 'Takahashi Kyosuke, our leader.'

'Leader?' Sae asked, 'you aren't tourists after all,' it wasn't a question.

'Technically speaking,' Seisuke replied, 'we are, back home we kind of like driving fast on our own roads.'

'I see,' Sae said then, looking back at Kyosuke, she added, 'well, I'm Ichihara Sae, and I'm also the leader of a group who…how did you put it?' she asked smirking at Seisuke, 'like driving _very _fast on the Ocean Drive.'

'Nice to meet you,' Kyosuke said politely.

Sae found that excessive formality funny and, letting out a soft chuckle, she replied:

'It's very nice meeting you too.'

Hearing the mocking tone made Kizuna and Ryoko take a step forward at the same time. Thankfully, Sae didn't seem to notice and the arrival of yet another set of cars, four of them, distracted her enough for both Kizuna and Ryoko to be able to relax a bit. Just in case, Kizuna decided to get even closer to Kyosuke.

'I don't like her,' Ryoko whispered to Kizuna.

'Ryoko,' Kyosuke warned her.

'I know, I know,' she said speaking a bit louder, 'I'll be good, I promise.'

No one else heard their conversation because the four cars parked near the space where the Golden Arrows had parked theirs and out of one of them, a silver Honda S3000, they saw a very tanned guy with bleached hair. He was dressed with a hoola short sleeved shirt which made him look like a surfer rather than a racer. In fact, he whole lot of them looked like they'd just left their surfing boards stuck in the sand somewhere.

'Hello there!' he greeted everyone talking very loudly.

'Ren,' Sae replied flatly, 'I hope you're ready to lose, again.'

'Hey,' the guy said without taking offence, 'you could try and be nicer, you know?'

'No way,' Sae replied, 'you know I never do any favours, regardless of who I race against.'

'Alright, alright,' the guy said smiling at her, 'it's the usual bet, isn't it?'

'Yes,' she replied.

'Let's get on with it then,' the guy said.

Hearing that made everyone start moving at once and soon, Kyosuke and the rest of the Arrows copied what they saw clearing the parking area by moving their cars as close to the beach as possible without getting them into the sand. The reason why everyone did that was made clear when they saw Sae driving her RZ-1 towards one of the ends of the car park, the one further from the bottom of the road while the silver S3000 did the same. It appeared clear to everyone that that specific point of the parking area was the official start of the road and that made Seisuke realise that he'd been wrong about something all along.

'Oh wow,' he said to his brother.

'What's up?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Do you realise that if they race this way that beautiful downhill sector has to be driven uphill?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied not seeing the point.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said frowning a bit, 'if that's the case, then the steep uphill which follows becomes a drop downhill. At what speed do you go by the time you get to the bridge? I don't even want to think about it...'

Kyosuke didn't have the time to consider it either because, right at that instant, they heard the two engines roaring back to life while the guy called Ryu went to stand in front of them ready to do the countdown:

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

Soon everyone understood the reason why the races started there; the parking area was a fairly long and rectangular area and, unlike the road which led to it, it was wide enough for the two cars to overtake each other in what probably was one of the very few chances the racers had to do so. The Golden Arrows saw as Sae's RZ-1 expertly passed the Honda and driving awfully fast, she started pushing her Mazda uphill.

'It's over,' they heard someone say.

'Why are you saying that?' Kazuya asked careful to keep an even tone of voice.

'It's always the same thing,' the guy explained, 'Sae-san always overtakes Ren-san but he hasn't given up.'

'Excuse me,' Junya said, 'but I heard this was an important race.'

'It is,' another of the locals explained, 'if Sae-san beats Ren-san tonight, it's over: she won't race him again.'

'They seem to be friendly enough to me,' Kyosuke commented.

'Of course they are,' the first guy said and seeing his confused expression, he elaborated, 'they're twins.'

'Whoa,' Seisuke gasped.

'But she's so much better than he is,' the second local explained, 'Ren-san's been trying to make it into Sae-san's team for ages but at this rate he'll never make it into the team, not if he insists in beating her first.'

After hearing this everyone there started paying even more attention to what was going on, getting a very accurate report from several of the members of Sae's team which, they learned, was called Typhoon Tigers in honour for the many tropical storms which hit that part of the country more or less regularly. Seisuke also found out that Sae was almost twenty one years old and had gone undefeated for over a year and a half.

'Aniki,' he said, 'I think I'm going to do it.'

'I knew you'd say that,' Kyosuke said, 'we only have three more nights here. When do you want to do it?'

'Saturday,' he replied, 'that'll give me two nights to train myself properly.'

'Do you think that's enough?' Kyosuke asked him.

'I don't know,' he replied sincerely, 'I won't know until I try.'

'True,' Kyosuke accepted, 'just don't do anything too crazy, you too need your car to go back home.'

'I know,' Seisuke said, 'I'll be careful, I promise.'

'Liar,' Kyosuke laughed softly but Seisuke didn't hear him: right at that moment they heard that Ren had tried to overtake Sae as the two reached the last sector of the road and for several long moments, they all held their breath until, a long last, the people reporting there announced that Sae had managed to stay in the lead. The girl remained there all the way to the end claiming what it was her nineteenth victory in a row.

'She's too good,' they commented.

'Yeah, Ren-san didn't stand a chance,' a few replied.

Seisuke choose to ignore those comments and, instead, waited patiently for the two opponents to come back. This time Sae was driving behind Ren's S3000 almost as if she was pushing him back towards the car park, once both of them were out of their rides, Ren's three friends rushed to him as if they wanted to offer some words of consolation when Sae stopped them and, talking to her twin brother, she said:

'Tell them what we've just agreed on.'

'Do I have to?'

'Come on,' Sae insisted.

'Alright,' Ren said looking miserable, 'she said she's tired of beating me so, she wants us to join her team.'

'But…' one of them complained.

'No protesting,' Sae ordered, 'I can't keep wasting my time racing him all the time so, you'll train with us and, next year, we'll race again. If he can't beat me then, I'll personally kick him all the way to South Korea.'

Everyone seemed to find that solution a fair one. Including Kyosuke who thought that maybe she was a little to rough but, as a leader, she had nothing to envy him. He was still thinking about that when he saw her walking towards Seisuke and the rest of the Golden Arrows followed by a few of the Typhoon Tigers.

'So,' she said talking to the future doctor, 'what's your answer?'

'Are you free on Saturday?' Seisuke asked her.

'Saturday?' she said, 'yes, I can make myself available.'

'Midnight?' Seisuke asked.

'Of course,' Sae replied then, extending her hand, she said, 'we have a deal then.'

'We do,' Seisuke said shaking her hand.

Sae moved away from him a bit just enough to look at Kyosuke and, offering him a smile, she said:

'I'm only sorry the Ocean Drive is too narrow for a three-way race.'

Kyosuke didn't say anything to that and Kizuna would have kissed him for the way he seemed immune to Sae's flirty ways unlike most of the males present there and was going to try and figure out a way to get him away from there when, out of the blue, they heard Shigeru's usually calm and ethereal voice shouting:

'YUTA! YUTA! LOOK!'

Everyone, not just Yuta, glanced at the direction he was pointing and they saw what at first it looked like one of the many bright spots in the sky the two usually confused with UFOs when, to their utmost horror, they all saw the bright and round spot first grow in size then it went from white to orange and just as it was turning into a triangular shape, it started emitting some pulsating sound that increased in volume as the now violently orange triangle got bigger as if it were getting closer. Kizuna felt someone's hand slip into hers and she looked down to see an utterly terrified Ryoko and seeing her scared expression made it all very real.

That definitely was a UFO.

_To be continued…_


	31. Chapter Thirty

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirty_

The weird light was gone as quickly as it had appeared leaving behind a stupefied crowd which seemed to have trouble believing what they'd just witnessed. A few minutes went by before everyone started reacting: there were those who, like Shigeru and Yuta, seemed ecstatic and even grateful to have gone through such a bizarre experience; those who, like Kyosuke and Seisuke, tried to find a reasonable explanation to what they'd seen and quite a few like Ryoko who were so freaked out about it they found themselves shaking.

'Did you get it all?' Shigeru asked Yuta eagerly.

'Yes, yes,' Yuta replied, the guy was actually skipping on his feet out of sheer excitement, 'I'm sending it to the group as we speak. This is so cool: Kaneda-san is going to be so jealous we got such good footage!'

'That wasn't a UFO, right Aniki?' Seisuke asked his brother almost as if he were seeking reassurance.

'Probably not,' Kyosuke said though not sounding entirely convinced.

'We're awfully close to South Korea,' Junya reasoned.

'Yeah,' Kazuya added, 'for all we know, the Koreans might be testing some sort of experimental aircraft.'

'That wasn't an experimental aircraft,' Yuta said sounding offended, 'you saw it yourself, didn't you?'

'Yeah,' Shigeru added, 'no known conventional aircraft can perform those sorts of manoeuvres.'

'Key words:' Kei countered, 'known _and_ conventional. Experimental planes are usually neither.'

'It was a shape-shifter,' Shigeru insisted completely ignoring Kei, 'probably from Alphacentaurian origin.'

'From-what-now?' Kazuya asked unable to believe his ears.

'Alpha Centaurus,' Yuta explained, 'it's a star system.'

'I know what it is,' Kauzya said, 'but that's not the point…'

'Shige-kun,' Yuta interrupted him, 'I think that we'll easily see a Neptunian ship tonight.'

'That's true,' Shigeru reasoned, 'everybody knows they often travel together.'

'It'd be so cool if we did,' Yuta said, 'Neptunian ships are a lot rarer than the Alphacentaurian ones.'

Both of them looked set on having one of their epically long and weird conversations when Kizuna noticed Ryoko tightening her grasp on her hand while she looked paler and more scared than ever. With a very small voice, the younger girl muttered:

'Kizuna-san, I really want us to go home.'

'That's an excellent idea,' Kizuna said then, speaking up, she told everyone, 'guys, we're going home now.'

Only then Kyosuke realised that both girls looked pretty frightened and he wanted to kick himself for being so insensitive. He also saw that several people had also started moving out and just then Sae Ichihara approached them one last time with a slightly freaked out expression on her otherwise good looking face.

'Now,' she said trying to laugh it off, 'that was an extra in the program I wasn't expecting.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied, 'let's hope things are more…normal on Saturday.'

'I'm sure they will be,' Sae said, 'in any case, I'll better go now, I'll make sure the Ocean Drive is clear for your guy to train himself a bit. Speaking of whom,' she added glancing at Seisuke, 'I never got your name.'

'It's Seisuke,' he said, 'Takahashi Seisuke.'

'Takahashi?' Sae asked.

'We're brothers,' Kyosuke explained.

'I see,' Sae said.

'Can we please go home _now_?' Ryoko insisted.

Sae glanced at her and, for some reason, gave her a patronising smile which neither Ryoko nor Kizuna seemed to appreciate. For this reason and without letting go of each other's hands, the two girls walked back to the 350Z and seeing that made Kyosuke say:

'We'll go now too.'

When half an hour later they were all back home, Yuta and Shigeru decided to go to the beach probably hoping that they would see some Neptunian space ship. The rest, still feeling too freaked out to go to bed stayed up at the common room either watching some random TV show, reading a magazine or talking to each other in an attempt to keep themselves distracted. Meanwhile both Kizuna and Ryoko also did their best to keep themselves busy by preparing something quick to eat for the rest of the team.

'Kizuna-san,' she said while she cut up some cheese, 'can I ask you a huge favour?'

'Of course,' she replied.

'Can I sleep in your room tonight?' Ryoko asked her shyly.

'Of course,' Kizuna repeated, smiling at her and squeezing one of her hands for good measure.

'Thanks,' Ryoko said still speaking with a slightly shaky voice.

'No problem,' Kizuna replied.

The event of the UFO sighting was pretty much everything everyone in the area talked about during the next few days and even the news reported the incident several times, to the point that Ryoko refused to watch TV only making an exception when, on Saturday morning, one of the sports channel started their broadcast of the ninth round of the F3 championship in Shanghai. Then, she joined everyone in the common room where they watched the highlights of the practice session held the previous day.

'I wish they'd shown them live,' Ryoko commented.

'There was that big baseball game, remember?' Kyosuke said.

'Guys look!' Seisuke exclaimed.

'That's Akito, isn't it?' Kazuya asked and all three Takahashi nodded at the same time. They all became quiet watching the black and white Dallara from the PIAA-Tanaka Team as it left the long pitlane to go and join a few other vehicles which were already covering the circuit for their own practice runs. Seisuke exchanged a glance with his older brother and saw his own mixed feelings mirrored on Kyosuke's face.

They both had gone to watch Akito's karting races numerous times and even if they knew that, sooner or later, this moment would come, it still felt very weird watching the kid they'd seen growing up and who was their best friend on TV and involved in a full scale international F3 event. It was almost as if that had made them realise that now that Akito had taken his first step into professionalism, he would get even more serious about his racing and both brothers were worried that with so many things changing in his life, Akito would find it increasingly difficult to remain the same kind and enthusiastic kid he'd always been.

At the same instant, a few thousand kilometres away, Akito was locked up in the small motorhome his team had rented for the weekend. With only his fireproof underpants and t-shirt on, he stared at the racing suit which was still in its hanger still finding it surreal to see his name embroidered on the belt. Before he could help himself, he placed his hand on top of the lettering which spelled "A. Fujiwara" in white italics over the black fabric while he thought of everything that he'd experienced since his arrival at the circuit on Friday.

First thing in the morning, the whole team had travelled together to the track, and while the mechanics were busy setting things up, Akito had got changed into his racing suit and had joined his father and Team Manager in their pitbox where Tanaka had informed him that they were due to attend a couple of pre-race briefings with the organisation and a few FIA representatives. He had then exchanged a quick, nervous glance with his father before following his Team Manager all the way to the circuit's main building.

Along the way, the man had explained to him what happened during those meetings:

'It's always the same thing,' he commented, 'they just list a few technical details about the track, they'll tell us about the programme and they'll make sure we understand what they expect from each one of us.'

'That's easy enough,' Akito said.

'Not for everyone,' Tanaka countered his many years of experience talking for him.

After that Akito remained quiet while he watched what went on around himself, his experience in kart racing had done very little to prepare him for the sheer chaos which reigned in the paddock: people from several teams and different racing disciplines were all mixed up with members of the circuit's own staff and the many FIA representatives together with a few lucky holders of the ALL ZONES passes rambling all over the place and the myriad of vehicles constantly going back and forth trying not to run over any of them.

'Are you okay?' Tanaka asked him noticing his stunned expression.

'Yes,' he replied quickly.

'Good,' Tanaka said, 'it's this way.'

Akito nodded and soon enough they were inside the circuit's main building climbing the short flight of steps which led to the briefing room. There they found several other drivers with their team managers as well as a few more FIA officials including the race director, some old guy Akito had seen several times on TV. Sitting down next to Tanaka, Akito couldn't help but to notice the way some of the people there stared at him: some were just curious, others looked surprised but there were a number of displeased glares.

Refusing to feel threatened by them, Akito swallowed hard and tried to focus his attention on the race director but, soon enough, his competitive nature struck in and he started trying to see who his rivals were. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Andrea Guelfi, the Italian guy who currently topped the drivers championship and who raced for Toda Racing. He was dressed in their official colours: red and black.

Not far from him, he saw a couple of other guys who raced for Toda Racing's arch-rival, the Petronas Team TOM'S. Akito recognised the Japanese one, he was Hideki Taguchi and if his memory didn't fail him, Hideki was only two or three years older than him. His team mate was a blond Austrian called Marko Schulz. Akito knew that both drivers were awfully fast and were the only decent competition Guelfi had had that year.

The race director stepped into the podium and Akito returned his attention to him while, just as Tanaka had said, they were told a few technical changes done to the track from the previous year, they were also reminded of the most important rules as well as to tell them that after today's practice session, there would be a short pre-race press conference that both drivers and Team Managers were required to attend.

They already knew that on Saturday there would be two qualifying sessions, one valid for the first of two races which would be held that same afternoon, the second session, would count towards Sunday's race and that both rounds would assign points for the championship as well as the usual monetary retribution.

'Are there any questions?' the old man asked at the end.

Akito had a thousand of them but, seeing that no one spoke, he decided to remain quiet too.

'Alright,' the race director said, 'we'll continue now with the drivers only.'

Before leaving the room together with the rest of the team managers, Tanaka exchanged a quick glance with Akito conveying a certain amount of reassurance together with a very clear order: behave yourself.

'Okay,' the race director continued, 'I don't want to take too long with this briefing since most of you here know the drill: this is the second time we have an F3 race here valid for the National Class Series of the All Japan F3 Championship. As you know, the Japanese Federation is trying to give more resonance to their championship to attract new talents as well as new investors. For this reason, I want to remind all of you to show your best behaviour at all times. Any wrongdoing, for whatever reason, might result in the withdrawal of your team from this event and possibly the championship. That's as much as you're risking.'

Hearing that made Akito get even more nervous.

'That said,' he continued, 'since your bosses aren't here, feel free to voice any concerns you might have.'

Predictably enough, no one spoke.

'Alright,' the race director said, 'you might go now, remember to make yourselves available for the press.'

This time a few of them said yes while others jut nodded then, as everyone started getting up from their chairs, Akito noticed that the two drivers of the Team TOM's started talking to each other in what sounded like English while looking at him in a way that made him realise that, while he couldn't understand a word of what they were saying, they were definitely not showering him with compliments.

'You don't speak English, do you?' a Japanese driver from the NOW MOTOR SPORT team asked him.

'No,' Akito replied.

'Of course not,' the guy said using a highly offensive and patronising tone

Akito refused to react to the obvious provocation and was going to take a step when the guy said:

'Do you want to know what they're saying?'

'Not really,' Akito replied honestly.

'Well, I'll tell you anyway,' the guy said, 'they're saying that you're way too young to be here and that it'll be impossible for you to make it through the practice session, let alone the qualifying or the race itself. I happen to agree with them but since I'm a nice guy, I'll just say this: do yourself a favour and, on the track, stay out of our way, it'll be a lot less painful for you that way.'

With that, the guy just walked away from him leaving Akito with a very unpleasant bitter taste in his mouth that stayed there all the time until he returned to the relative safety of his team pitbox and once there, his father took him to the side and, looking a little worried and keeping a very low tone of voice, he asked him:

'How did it go?'

'Fine,' Akito replied unconvincingly.

'Did anyone pick on you?' his father insisted.

Akito considered lying to him but, since it was his father he was talking to, he decided to be honest:

'They did, but I kind of expected it.'

'Did you?' Takumi asked.

'Yeah, but it's okay' Akito replied and then tried to laugh it off, 'I'm not here to make friends, am I?'

'No, you're not,' his father agreed, 'but if it gets too much, let me know, okay?'

'Of course,' Akito replied and wanted to add something else when Tanaka called him to get in the car.

The practice session went extraordinarily well for Akito considering that he'd never raced on this circuit and it was his first time driving with another twenty seven cars going around the circuit at the same time. In the end, not only his father and Tanaka were happy with his work but some other people, including quite a few journalists, expressed interest in the latest newcomer even asking him a couple of questions during the pre-race press conference. Akito got so nervous that Tanaka took pity on him and helped him answer them.

'You're not good coping with attention, are you?' the Team Manager had asked him later.

'No, I'm really sorry,' Akito replied looking mortified.

'Don't worry about it,' Tanaka reassured him, 'I want a fast driver in my team, not a diva.'

Returning to the present, Akito smiled a little while he remembered that and, at long last, he started putting his racing suit back on and when five minutes later he stepped out of the motorhome, with his helmet hanging from his hand, the balaclava and gloves stuffed in it, Akito found his father Takumi waiting outside for him. The two of them made their way back into the pitbox when they saw Andrea Guelfi walking past.

'Don't look at him,' Takumi instructed.

'Why?' Akito asked.

'You'll get nervous,' his father replied.

'Okay,' Akito said not having fully understood it.

Shortly after, the mechanics gave him the all-clear and Akito got in the car. They then turned the Mugen-Honda MF304D on and Akito felt it roaring to live. He smiled hearing that sound and, taking a few calming breaths, he readied himself for what was going to be the first F3 qualifying session of his life being acutely aware that whatever he did in the following half an hour would weight on the rest of his career forever.

Fuelled up with the determination to do his very best, Akito rolled his car out of the pitbox and a few moments later he was driving it down the pitlane, joining the track a few seconds after and, just as he'd trained himself to do countless times, he completed the first lap checking the tarmac's conditions as well as trying to spot any problems in the car's setup. He found nothing wrong with either and once he crossed the finish line, he launched himself in the first of the very limited number of flying laps at his disposal.

Covering the second half of the main straight as fast as he could, he slowed down only when he got to the first corner which was a very wide right hander followed by a very tight S shaped sector formed by the second, third and fourth corners which also was the slowest part of the circuit. After that there was a short but very fast straight interrupted only by a small right hand turn and that led to the first hairpin of the circuit. Akito really liked that part, especially since it took him around a series of very fast corners that ended with a ninety degree left hand turn followed by yet another very wide right hander and, after that, there was a one kilometre long strip of perfectly straight tarmac that was interrupted by the second hairpin and another ninety degree left hand turn that went back to the main straight.

While it wasn't as glamorous as some of the old European circuits he'd seen only on TV, Akito found that the Shanghai circuit suited his driving rather well and he got proof of that when lap after lap he saw that his times were getting better the more he drove on it. It was only then when Akito forgot that he was supposed to be nervous and, for the first time in the whole weekend, he started having so much fun that he frowned when he heard his Team Manager's voice over the radio telling him to go back in.

'Alright,' he said sounding very reluctant.

Back in Fukuoka, several people there could not believe the times which were appearing on the TV screen.

'Aniki…'

'Wow,' Kizuna gasped.

'Let's wait and see,' Kyosuke advised, 'it's still too soon to tell.'

They watched in trepidation as the rest of the drivers completed their qualifying laps and, only when after half an hour the race director declared the session finished they started breathing easy once again. Andrea Guelfi had got the sixth pole of his season, behind him they saw Yukio Minamoto from Avangarde Racing and after him they saw Akito Fujiwara with the PIAA-Tanaka Team. Everyone from the Golden Arrows sported equally impressed expressions excepting Ryoko who looked stunned and Junya whose usual scowl looked more pronounced than ever.

'I can't believe he's third,' Masato managed to say.

'That kid's amazing,' Izawa said.

'Are you sure he's never done this before?' Eiji asked to the Takahashi brothers.

'Positive,' Kyosuke replied looking awfully proud.

'It's only qualifying,' Junya finally said, 'I bet you anything he won't go beyond tenth in the second round.'

'Anything?' Kazuya challenged him.

'Yes,' Junya replied sounding very sure of himself.

'Cool,' Kazuya said, 'if Akito does equally well or better, you'll go to my father's next party in my place.'

'And if not?' Junya asked him.

'It's you who claimed you'd do anything,' Kazuya reminded him, 'if I lose, I don't have do anything.'

'Alright,' Junya said offering his hand to his cousin, 'we've got a deal.'

'Sweet,' Kazuya said shaking it.

Forty-five minutes later, Akito's black and white single-seater was back on the track for his second qualifying season, the one which would give him his position for Sunday's race. They watched him going around the entire length of the circuit to start the first of his flying laps, negotiating the corners with a really good level of confidence, almost as though as he and the circuit were starting to get along as well as a pair of friends.

Half way through his first fast lap, Akito was about to get into the second hairpin when they saw one of the white, yellow and red cars belonging to the Petronas TOM's team. Marko Schulz was currently on his lap out and therefore he was supposed to let Akito through but, to everyone's dismay, the Austrian chose to ignore that rule and just drove into the sharp corner, sticking as close as possible to its apex, entirely disregarding the fact that he had Akito's much faster car behind him.

Braking harder than he should have, Akito missed the hairpin's ideal entry line and that sent him into a slight understeer which made him go too wide. It was only a large dose of the legendary Fujiwara luck which made it possible for him to return to the track, unfortunately, that completely ruined his lap and he was forced to wait until he crossed the finish line so that he could try again.

'Dammit,' Seisuke complained, 'that bloody German.'

'He's Austrian,' Kyosuke pointed out.

'Whatever,' Ryoko said harshly.

'He's a pig,' Kizuna agreed.

'Guys, be quiet,' Kazuya said, 'he's going for it now.'

A furious Akito crossed the finish line and, knowing that Marko's TOM's was right ahead of him, he pushed the little Dallara as fast as the MF304D would take it. He cut the first corner a lot more aggressively than he'd done up to then and from there he just flew over every single one of the corners all the way up to the spot where his flying lap had got ruined. There, just before they got to the second hairpin, Akito saw the back of Marko's single-seater looking so tempting that Akito felt his foot lower on the accelerator pedal.

'Akito,' he heard his father's voice on the radio, 'calm down.'

Akito smirked hearing that and, sticking his car to the back of the TOM's, he cleared the hairpin with it then, the instant they reached the short straight which led to the seventh turn, Akito opened up his line and using the slight advantage given by the aerodynamic resistance, he pushed his car past Marko's getting into the wide left hander a split second before the Austrian and Akito would have blocked his line if it hadn't been because, somewhere in his brain, he knew he would ruin his own flying lap if he did so.

Ten minutes later the second qualifying session finished too and the results were made official: in pole position, they had Marko's team mate Hideki Taguchi, after him they saw Andrea Guelfi and only a two tenths of a second behind the Italian, they saw Akito's name followed by the PIAA-Tanaka logo. Yukio Minamoto from Avangarde Racing managed a fourth place while Marko's time was only the seventh best.

'Hey,' Kazuya said smirking at Junya, 'I hope you still remember how to do your bow tie.'

Everyone there laughed at the scowl which appeared on Junya's face.

In Shanghai, after the second qualifying session, Akito and his father joined some of the members of his team in the circuit's restaurant to have something quick to eat. Since he still had to complete a fifteen lap race that afternoon, he knew that eating too much would definitely be unwise. For this reason, he just grabbed some boiled rice and some steam-cooked fish smiling when he saw that, out of solidarity towards him, his father chose the same austere menu. The two were about to start eating when they saw Andrea Guelfi walking towards their table with one of the members of his team.

'Excuse me if I bother you while you're eating,' the guy said in English and talking to Akito.

'What?' Akito asked looking like he obviously hadn't understood a single word.

'Oh,' Andrea said looking a little dismayed, 'no English?'

Akito shook his head.

'Okay,' Andrea said still in English then, in broken Japanese, he tried, 'you name?'

'Fujiwara Akito,' he replied cautiously.

'You young,' Andrea commented, 'years?'

Akito looked puzzled for an instant then Takumi said:

'I think he's asking you your age.'

'Ah,' Akito gasped then, opening and closing his hand three times, he said slowly, 'fifteen.'

The Toda Racing driver looked astonished for a short moment then he started laughing out loud and said:

'You good!'

Then, before Akito had the time to figure out what Andrea meant with that, the much older guy just left as suddenly as he'd come leaving poor Akito wondering whether he was just making fun of him or if he was somehow trying to pay him a compliment. For his own mental health's sake, Akito chose the second option.

Fortunately, the rest of the lunch went by without any other incident, other than the fact that Marko and Hideki glared at him while they went to sit at their own table but, as Akito was slowly realising, they would probably do that every single time they saw him and he just had to get used to it. After all, the only way he would earn their respect was to show them that Tanaka had put him in his car for a good reason.

That moment came very soon and, at exactly half past two in the afternoon, Akito was back in the pitbox waiting for his mechanics to finish readying his car when he remembered that he hadn't called Ryoko yet. He then asked his father for his mobile phone and stepped out of the pitbox to place the call. Ryoko answered immediately as if she'd had her phone in her hand all the time and hearing her voice put a smile on his face.

'Hi,' she said.

'Hey,' Akito replied, 'listen, I don't have a lot of time now but I wanted you to…'

'Be careful, okay?' she interrupted him knowing what he wanted her to say.

'I will be,' Akito said sounding a little more relaxed.

'I love you,' she said.

'Me too,' Akito replied.

After this, they closed the call and Akito went back into the pitbox before anyone had the time to miss him. He returned his phone to his father so that he could keep it while he raced and his old man chose that moment to give him a quick pre-race pep talk during which Takumi reminded him that qualifying was one thing but the race would be an entirely different business. Akito nodded a few times and then, he said:

'Don't worry Dad, I'll be okay.'

'I know that son,' Takumi said, 'but remember that those guys out there are after the same thing you are.'

'I know,' Akito replied, 'but I want it a lot more than they do.'

'That's the right spirit,' Takumi said nodding his approval.

At long last, the mechanics told Akito the car was ready and just then Tanaka came back from talking with a couple of their sponsors and while Takumi helped Akito with the HANS device, the Team Manager told him that everyone was very impressed with his times during qualifying and that a lot of people were looking forward to seeing what he'd do during the race. Akito promised he'd do his best and then he got in the car.

The mechanics started the MF304D and soon Akito rolled the car out of the pitbox and onto the pitlane where he joined the rest of the drivers on their way around the circuit to get to their places on the starting grid. The drivers used some of the straight sectors to try and bring the tyres up to the right temperature and they also checked that the conditions of the track hadn't changed all that much since the second qualifying session earlier on that day and Akito was happy to see that his car's performance was still perfect.

'How's it feeling?' he heard Tanaka's voice over the radio.

'It's great,' Akito replied.

'Excellent,' Tanaka said, 'watch out at the start for the other cars. It's okay if you lose a couple of positions, what's important here is that you get the car to the finish line, okay?'

'Yes, sir,' Akito replied sounding as convincing as possible.

Very soon, he reached his position on the starting grid and placed his car just behind Andrea Guelfi's red and black single-seater. Akito was quickly surrounded by three of his team's mechanics who were there to ensure that nothing went wrong with the car before the start and while they worked, Akito noticed that Andrea was talking to some stunning looking girl, probably Italian, who was crouching right next to him by the car keeping her head as close to his still open helmet as possible.

She then laughed at something he said and, playfully, she put his visor down before blowing him a kiss in a way that made Akito's cheeks feel slightly warmer as he tried to imagine Ryoko doing the same thing with him. Hearing his Chief Engineer talking to him made Akito return back on Earth and, shaking his helmeted head, he got rid of the very distracting thought while he focused his mind on the upcoming race.

Three minutes before the start, the technical staff cleared the grid leaving the twenty eight drivers alone. Akito then waited for the three red dots in the overhead lights to disappear making sure the engine was kept revved steadily and, the moment the third one did, he saw Andrea driving away followed by Yukio and then, it was his turn to roll the car forward. He followed the two cars around the circuit for the formation lap during which his level of concentration reached its peak.

Back in Fukuoka, the Golden Arrows plus Ryoko held their breath while they saw the last car get in position and then the track's marshal raised the green flag to signal that they were all good to go and, just then, the overhead lights went from all red to all green and all twenty eight cars moved at the same time:

Andrea's Dallara took off so fast that everyone thought the guy was flying. Yukio did his best to keep up with him but only managed to hold onto his second place while Akito was just happy he hadn't stalled his car at the start and was desperately trying to keep Hideki in his TOM's car behind him. He was about to follow Yukio into the first corner when he saw the TOM's white, yellow and red car reflected on the tiny rear view mirror and before he could do anything to prevent it, Hideki passed Akito stealing his third place.

'Crap,' Akito complained.

'It's okay,' he heard his father saying, 'stay focused.'

Akito cleared both the wide right hander and then moved on to the S shaped sector fighting against the instinct which wanted him to push it. He also had a NOW MOTOR SPORTS stuck to to the back of his car and if he made even the slightest mistake he would lose yet another position so, doing his best to calm down, Akito launched his car in Hideki's pursue vowing that, before the race was over, he would get back in third place.

_To be continued…_


	32. Chapter Thirty One

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirty One_

During the first lap, Akito sought to consolidate his position by blocking every single one of the attacks by the NOW MOTOR SPORTS car all the while doing his best to stay glued to Hideki's Petronas TOM's and at the same time keeping his own car on the fastest possible racing lap. This, of course, was much easier said than done and by the time the second lap started Akito found himself under an unbelievable amount of pressure.

Further ahead, Yukio Minamoto was doing his best to overtake Andrea Guelfi engaging in a very aggressive dogfight which didn't seem to trouble the Italian all that much, mainly because he was a rather experienced driver who was used to dealing with high levels of stress and the fact that the Mugen-Honda which powered his Dallara seemed to be in a much better shape than the Toyota engine used by Avangarde Racing.

At lap five, the two cleared the hairpin together and when they got to the seventh corner, one of the fastest left hand turns of the track, Yukio decided to use an outward line in order to pass Andrea who was currently on the inside when his car lost traction for just a fraction of a second and, to Yukio's utmost horror, he felt his car going too wide only to spin out of the tarmac and get sent onto the gravel where he became stuck.

Andrea didn't give any indications that he'd noticed that and the Italian kept on driving in first position with a massive seventeen second lead over Hideki who moved up to second place. Akito found himself third again without needing to overtake Hideki but his competitive nature pushed him to keep trying to pass the guy and at lap nine Akito checked his rear view mirrors to see that the NOW MOTOR SPORTS car was, at long last, far enough to give him the peace of mind he needed to properly attack Hideki.

'Six more laps,' Kyosuke commented, his attention focused on the TV screen.

'He's third,' Izawa observed, 'he'll settle for that, right?'

Both Takahashi brothers looked at him with identical incredulous expressions.

'No way,' Seisuke replied, 'now is when the fun starts for him.'

While some people nodded to that, Kizuna noticed that Ryoko's expression was tense.

'He'll be fine,' she tried reassuring her.

'He will be,' the younger girl confirmed, almost as if she was trying to convince herself.

Just then, at the beginning of the tenth lap, they saw Hideki and Akito entering the first parabolic with the white and black PIAA-Tanaka car stuck to the back of the white, yellow and red TOM's. They then entered the S shaped sector and as they negotiated the second of the turns there, Akito tried his first serious attack: he feigned going inwards but Hideki wasn't fooled, the guy stayed just where he was forcing Akito to stay behind him. Akito then repeated the trick, this time going outwards, as the two covered the straight leading to the first hairpin but, once again, Hideki managed to block his attack without breaking a sweat.

Akito had to admit it that the guy was even better than Seisuke when it came to defending himself and that made Akito adopt a different strategy. Since feints didn't work with him, he would just keep pressing him into making a mistake. For this reason, Akito kept on trying to pass Hideki at virtually every single spot possible during the following three laps and when the two of them crossed the line to start what was lap twelve out of fifteen, Akito somehow sensed that Hideki's concentration was beginning to drop.

'It's now or never,' he muttered to himself.

Back in the pitbox, Takumi and Tanaka observed with a certain level of apprehension as Akito waited till the end of the main straight to veer inwards then Hideki finally moved to close the gap and, just then, Akito let the four wheels of his car drift outwards only to regain control of the vehicle to push it around Hideki's, levelling with him as the two of them went around the super-wide right hander.

Akito knew that if he managed to stay level with him all the way to the second turn of the S, he would then be in the inside of the corner and therefore would have the advantage, for this reason he kept his foot down on the accelerator and hoped that Hideki would not think of trying to take him out of the race by crashing against him. Thankfully, by the time they reached that second corner, Akito was still very much in the race.

Clearing the turn just ahead of Hideki, Akito then proceeded to cross right in front of it and then, in his newly acquired second position, Akito cruised his way down the straight which took him to the hairpin knowing that Hideki was very likely absolutely furious with him and therefore would attack Akito like there was no tomorrow and that the only way he would avoid that was to increase the gap as much as possible.

Unfortunately, Hideki was definitely not going to allow him to pull away quite so easily and for the following lap Akito found himself pressed by Hideki just as intensively as he'd been pressing the guy before. Even if there were less than two and a half laps to go, Akito had the distinct impression that Hideki had an ace up his sleeve and that unless he kept his concentration up, Hideki would probably use it to overtake him.

Just then, as they had just covered the second of the two parabolic corners and were now cruising down the one kilometre long straight, Akito saw something ahead of him which wasn't supposed to be there.

'What the…'

'Don't worry about it,' he heard his father's voice over the radio.

'What's wrong with him?' Akito asked.

'That's none of your business,' Takumi insisted, 'focus on your race and stay calm.'

Akito complied with that order and a few instants later, he drove past Andrea's red Toda Racing car which was proceeding at a very slow speed probably hoping that he would somehow make it to the pitlane. Akito was so concentrated in keeping Hideki behind him that he nearly failed to realise something rather important: with Andrea out of the race, Akito was now leading in first place in his first F3 race ever.

'Oh shit,' he muttered.

'Akito, don't get nervous,' Takumi said, 'and focus: you only have two laps to go.'

Swallowing hard, he crossed the finish line with Hideki still firmly behind him. He tried to forget about the fact that he was first and forced himself to think that Andreas was still somewhere ahead of him. He used the straight before the first parabolic to take a few much needed claming breaths and then he readied himself to go around the wide corner sending his brain into an overdrive with the sheer amount of things he was forcing it to process all at once.

Despite that and while they cruised down the straight leading to the first hairpin, Akito noticed Hideki trying to overtake him there. He nearly got level with Akito when they finally got to the hairpin, there, Akito used every bit of his cornering skills to clear it before Hideki did but as soon as the got to the series of fast corners, Hideki showered Akito with attacks all the way to the second parabolic where an exhausted Akito went a little too wide and Hideki was quick enough to use that chance to get past Akito.

Refusing to give up the lead so easily and before Hideki could pull away, Akito used the long straight to level with him again and just before the second hairpin, both cars were launched into a kamikaze-like manoeuvre to see who chickened out first. Akito steeled himself while he fought the urge to close his eyes when, to his relief, he saw that Hideki was slowing down a bit. Akito entered the corner a split second before Hideki but only then he realised that he was going way too fast.

He tried to correct that half way through the hairpin but that made Hideki pass him again and by the time they got to the ninety-degree turn which led to the main straight, Hideki was again ahead of him. Damning himself for his stupidity, Akito used once again the straight to level with Hideki and they then crossed the line to start the very last lap level with each other.

That didn't last long because as soon as they got to the first parabolic, Akito used the very same tactic he'd used with Hideki only that, this time, he moved inwards instead of outwards and that allowed him to pass Hideki using the first turn of the S and by the time they got to the second, Akito was once again on the lead.

Knowing that he was getting too tired to keep his concentration up, Akito decided to forget about looking after the engine and for the following half a lap, he asked the MF304D to give him all it had. In spite of that, Hideki seemed to have the same idea and by the time the two of them got to the second hairpin, with less than eight hundred meters to go, Hideki tried to pass him again there.

This time, Akito entered the hairpin at the correct speed and he managed to clear it almost trouble-free. Alas, Hideki still had not given up and when they both slowed down to get into the very last corner of the race, Hideki levelled with Akito's car, getting so close to it that it forced Akito to open his line up a bit, then Hideki tried to pass him just as they cleared it and headed for the main straight.

For the last four hundred metres of the race, both Akito and Hideki floored it and they both crossed the finish line so close to each other that Akito didn't really know who had won and it wasn't until Tanaka and his father got in touch with him by radio that he found out what had happened.

'You've done it!' Tanaka screamed excitedly.

'Well done son,' Akito heard his father say with a very odd sounding voice.

'Have I…won?' he then asked.

'Oh yes, you have,' Tanaka replied still sounding overjoyed, 'Fujiwara-kun, that was a fantastic race!'

While Akito tried to go around the track for one last time without crashing his car in the process, he was unable to believe what had just happened. He knew that his car was good and that he had trained very hard and that, for some reason, he liked the Shanghai circuit but not even in his wildest dreams he would have ever imagined that he could have won his first F3 race ever. Granted, he'd been very lucky that Yukio first and then Andrea had got themselves out of action without him having to do anything about it but, still…

'Aniki,' an astonished Seisuke breathed, 'he's won…that punk…'

'I know,' Kyosuke said shaking his head, 'I can't believe it.'

'I can,' Ryoko countered, her face was lit up like a Christmas tree, 'I knew he'd do well.'

'You don't get it,' Seisuke said, 'this...this is huge.'

'Ryoko,' Kyosuke explained, 'the percentage of drivers who win their first professional race is very small.'

'So?' Ryoko asked obviously failing to see the point, 'this is Akito we're talking about, isn't it?'

'True,' both brothers replied at the same time.

'At any rate,' Kazuya intervened, 'that kid really is something amazing. To think he's only fifteen…'

'The brat's going to become unbearable now,' Junya grunted while he got up.

Then, without saying anything else to anyone, he just walked out of the room and then they all heard the front door open and close. Everyone in the room then focused their attention back on the TV screen where they watched as the organisation prepared the podium ceremony. Meanwhile Kyosuke and Seisuke exchanged a slightly worried looking glance because, deep down, they both feared that Junya was right.

Back in the circuit, Akito was in a state of trance and if it weren't because both the organisation, his own father and his Team Manager seemed to take it upon themselves to make sure Akito would know what to do, he would have probably just collapsed the instant he got out of the car. In fact, he still had very shaky legs and he had to grab himself onto the rail while he climbed the short flight of stairs to go to the podium.

He had stepped onto the first place of the podium countless times during his karting races but this somehow felt different, almost as if the step was a lot higher than usual. It didn't help that the ceremony seemed to be carried out in a much more formal way and that they gave him an actual bottle of champagne but since he was underage, the circuit's officials told him that he couldn't drink any of it, he shook his head and said:

'I won't, I promise.'

The prize-giving ceremony was done in less than ten minutes and after that, Akito found himself pushed towards the press conference room together with Hideki and the driver of the NOW MOTOR SPORTS car whose name was Naoki Kawamura. On their way there Akito saw that Andrea was talking to one of his mechanics. He then glanced towards Akito and, instead of looking mad at him or anything, he smiled a bit.

He was so impressed by Andrea's high level of sportsmanship that he stopped to bow respectfully at the older and more experienced driver and that, for some reason, widened the smile on the Italian guy's face who then left is mechanic behind to walk towards Akito and, in broken Japanese, he said:

'Good race, tomorrow, me, you, race good, okay?'

Akito nodded as enthusiastically as possible and then the circuit's officials told him they needed to hurry up. Just then, he noticed the venom-filled glare coming from Hideki and Akito felt grateful that given the amount of people they had around them, Hideki would probably refrain from saying anything offensive to him but he did see the way Hideki pushed his chair away from Akito's when the three drivers sat down at the table.

Soon Akito was too busy trying to cope with the sheer amount of questions the press seemed to have to care about Hideki's pety ways and was slightly relieved when he saw his father and Tanaka standing at the back of the room. Takumi tried to give Akito a reassuring nod while his son listened to the following question coming from a journalist of the Nikkan Sports newspaper:

'Fujiwara-kun,' the man said, 'you've surprised everyone winning your first race ever, is there anyone you want to dedicate it to?'

'Pardon me?' Akito asked nervously.

'Do you want to dedicate your first victory to anyone in particular?' the man repeated a little patronisingly.

'Oh,' Akito gasped, then he answered the first thing he thought of, 'er…yes…I'd like to dedicate it to the ones who have made all of this possible: my family, Takahashi Keisuke-san and of course everyone in the PIAA-Tanaka Team for giving me the chance to race for them even though I'm still so inexperienced.'

A few questions later the conference was over and, with that, the TV broadcast finished reminding the viewers that there would be a re-run of the race sometime during the night and that they would be back on air with the second race late on Sunday morning. Just then, Ryoko got up all of a sudden announcing that she was going to the beach for a walk.

'Ryo…' Kyosuke tried to stop her but his cousin didn't listen to him.

'What's up with her?' Seisuke asked him.

'No idea,' Kyosuke replied and was about to get up too when Kizuna said:

'I'll go and see.'

Everyone in the room watched while the half-American girl went out of the room but soon they were busy commentating the race they had just seen exchanging opinions about what they thought had been the best moments of it. Meanwhile, Kizuna saw Ryoko sitting on the sand not far from there, she had her knees drawn towards her chest, her arms around her legs and her chin leaning onto her knees while she let her gaze get lost somewhere beyond the vastness of the sea. Getting closer, Kizuna saw that she was crying.

'Can I sit here?' Kizuna asked her softly.

Ryoko just nodded and was going to wipe her tears off her face when Kizuna asked her:

'What's wrong?'

For a short while Ryoko refused to reply to the question making Kizuna fear that the girl would just get up and leave then, after a few minutes of silence, Ryoko started crying again while she tried to find the words.

'He didn't even mention my name,' she finally said with a very small voice.

Kizuna knew perfectly well what she was talking about, she was going to speak when Ryoko continued:

'I thought I was doing a good job,' she said miserably, 'I've tried to be as supportive as possible but…'

'Ryoko-chan,' Kizuna stopped her, 'you are possibly one of the most supportive girlfriends I've ever known.'

'Not enough,' Ryoko countered then, she shook her head and said, 'forget it, I'm just being silly.'

'Ryoko-chan…'

'Forget it,' she repeated, 'it's too soon and what Akito said is only fair. You probably don't know this but it was his grandfather who first took him karting and it's been his whole family who have supported him all along, even my father has helped by giving Akito the chance to train at the Centre and let's face it, without Tanaka-san, Akito would have never debuted so soon. It's only normal that he'd dedicate them his first win.'

'Ryoko-chan…'

'Forget it, okay?' she insisted, 'I'm just being silly.'

'No you're not,' Kizuna said firmly, 'and I think you need to tell Akito that…'

'No way,' Ryoko interrupted her sounding alarmed, 'and please promise me that you won't tell him either.'

'But…'

'Promise me,' she insisted.

'Alright, I promise,' Kizuna said, 'but Akito…'

'You just don't understand,' Ryoko said very seriously.

'Ryo…'

'You've got it so easy with Kyosuke,' she said. Kizuna noticed the profound jealousy in her voice.

'What do you mean?' she asked as calmly as she could.

'For me,' Ryoko explained, 'and for Kaori,' she added as an afterthought, 'it's so difficult. You and Kyosuke both have a common target in your lives and the two of you have so many things in common that's almost stupid. For me and Kaori is different, we both know that no matter how hard we try, we'll never be first.'

'Ryoko…'

'Mind you,' she continued, 'for Kaori is even worse, she comes only third after both racing _and _medicine and she only gets whatever's left of Seisuke's attention after that. You have no idea of how insecure it makes you feel when you know that, at the very best, you'll always be a close second in your boyfriend's life.'

'Ryoko-chan…'

'I thought I'd be okay with it,' she carried on talking, 'but lately is getting so hard, I know he's doing his best to see me as much as he can but I know that this situation won't last, even less now that he's won. To be honest, I'm so proud of him I think my heart will explode but I'm also terrified that after this win he's only going to get further away from me,' she gave a dry, humourless laugh and said, 'soon he won't need me.'

'Don't be stupid,' Kizuna said, 'he will always need you, Akito loves you and…'

'I know that,' Ryoko interrupted her, 'but that's got nothing to do with it. I can't even explain it properly but I keep getting the feeling that Akito's living in a different world, one where I don't have any role. It makes me feel so useless and so scared too and I don't really know what to do to make sure he doesn't forget me.'

'You need to tell him that,' Kizuna said firmly.

'I can't do that,' Ryoko countered, 'I promised I would never do that again.'

'But…'

'Kaori and I both have made the same mistake,' Ryoko explained, 'and we both lost to racing. When Akito gave me a second chance, I promised him that I would never ask him to give up racing again so if I tell him about how I feel he'll think I'm having second thoughts about that and he would definitely break up with me again because the very last thing he needs in his life now is for me to cause him problems.'

'But Ryoko-chan,' Kizuna said, 'are you sure _you_ can cope with this?'

'I don't know,' she replied honestly, 'but I have to try.'

'Don't take this the wrong way,' Kizuna warned her, 'but I think you've gone from one side of the spectrum to the other and now you're letting Akito be as selfish as you were when you asked him to give up racing.'

'I probably am,' Ryoko agreed, 'but it's okay. Akito needs to be selfish now. He needs to focus on his career now more than ever or it'll never take off. If I distract him now, he'll miss the chance to make it big in racing and I know we'll both regret it for the rest of our lives also,' she said, 'it's the only thing I can do for him.'

Kizuna remained silent for a short time while she considered all the options she had then, she said:

'Alright, I guess you know what you're doing but, just so you know,' she stopped and looking at Ryoko, she placed her hand onto her shoulder and added, 'you're not alone, I'm here for whatever you need, okay?'

Ryoko nodded once.

'Okay,' Kizuna continued, 'now do you want to go inside or would you rather go for a swim?'

'Let's go back,' Ryoko decided and just as they were getting up, she added, 'Kizuna-san, thank you.'

'No problem,' she replied then, she said, 'but please drop the –san, okay? From now on call me Kizuna.'

'But…'

'And I'll call you Ryoko, if you don't mind.'

'Of course I don't mind,' Ryoko replied, 'I just…you're older and…'

'I'm your friend,' Kizuna interrupted her, 'as such, I want you to drop the formalities with me, okay?'

'Alright,' Ryoko said smiling, 'Kizuna it is then.'

'Brilliant,' Kizuna said returning the smile.

The two girls then walked back towards the house and when they stepped into the living room, half of the Golden Arrows were gone while the others were still talking about racing, only that they've moved to the current WRC season. Kyosuke and Seisuke looked up seeing them and the latter glanced at Ryoko and said:

'Are you alright?'

'Yeah,' Ryoko lied, 'I was just a bit overwhelmed, you know, seeing him winning his first race just like that…'

'It is rather astonishing,' Kyosuke admitted, 'even if he was very lucky with Guelfi breaking down like that.'

'Did they say what happened to him?' Kizuna asked him.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'he had an electrical problem with the computer which controls the gearbox. The poor guy found he no longer could shift into any gear and ended up stuck in first, I kind of feel bad for him…'

'Yeah,' Seisuke agreed, 'it must be a pretty horrible sensation losing a race with less than two laps to go.'

'In any case,' Kazuya said, 'that made it possible for Akito to win his race so, who cares?'

Nobody did and then Kizuna asked:

'Where's everybody?'

'They've all gone to the petrol station,' Seisuke said, 'we ought to go too but we wanted to call Akito first.'

'Yes,' Kyosuke added looking at Ryoko, 'but we wanted you to make the call, it's your right as his girlfriend.'

Ryoko blushed a little but then she got her phone out of her small handbag and she called Akito.

'Hi!' he answered immediately.

'Hello,' Ryoko said sounding a little shy, 'we watched the race, congratulations on your first victory.'

'Thanks,' he replied, 'I was just very lucky, that's all, tomorrow is the really important race.'

'You'll do well,' she assured him.

'To be honest, I just hope I get to the finish line,' he said sounding as if he were in a bit of a hurry.

'Do you have to go anywhere?' Ryoko asked him frowning a little.

'Yeah,' Akito replied, 'Tanaka-san said he wants me to meet with a couple of his sponsors.'

'Ah,' Ryoko said, 'Kyosuke and Seisuke also want to talk to you…'

'I really don't have time now,' Akito interrupted her, 'can you please tell them I'll call as soon as I can?'

'Of course,' Ryoko replied then she remembered, 'Seisuke is having a race here tonight and…'

'Is that so?' Akito asked now sounding a little impatient.

'Yeah,' she replied, 'he's racing with a local team that…'

'I have to go now,' Akito stopped her, 'I'll talk to you soon.'

With that, he closed the call leaving Ryoko feeling stunned that, not only he hadn't wanted to discuss any details about Seisuke's race but what was worse, he hadn't even told her that he loved her like he usually did just before they would hang up the phone. She forced herself to smile and looking up, she said:

'He was in a bit of a hurry but he promised he'll call you guys as soon as he can.'

'It's understandable,' Kyosuke said trying to be reasonable, 'he's probably being rushed off his feet now.'

'That's right,' Kizuna supported him while offering Ryoko a sympathetic smile.

'I'm sure he'll tell us all about his races on Monday,' Seisuke added.

'I guess you're right,' Ryoko said, forcing her smile to get a bit wider.

A few hours later, the Golden Arrows plus Ryoko were getting ready to go to the Ocean Drive when Seisuke and Kyosuke went ahead of them to the car park so that they could talk about the race without being heard.

'Do you think you can do it?' Kyosuke asked his brother.

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied confidently, 'I'm all pumped up after what we've seen Akito do this afternoon!'

'Okay,' Kyosuke said with one of his tiny smiles, 'just don't get too cocky, remember she knows that road as well as we know Mt Akagi's so she probably knows every trick in the book and surprising her will be hard.'

'I know,' Seisuke agreed, 'but it's _your_ idea so it'll work for sure.'

Kyosuke let out a chuckle and was going to say something else when the rest of the troupe arrived and shortly after that the thirteen cars were driving along the Ocean Drive where, to Kazuya's astonishment, the number of suicidal people standing behind the guardrails had increased to the point that there wasn't a single corner without anyone in it. 'They're mental,' they all heard the guy saying over the radio.

Down at the car park by the beach, they found even more cars than during the race between the Ichihara twins on Wednesday night and even the level of tension in the atmosphere seemed different, as if they all knew that Sae would probably be racing seriously against the outsider. The Golden Arrows parked their cars next to the ones belonging to the Typhoon Tigers and seeing their gorgeous decals made Seisuke feel happy that Kyosuke had allowed him to put his Golden Arrows stickers back on for that race.

'Hello,' Sae said when they climbed out of their cars.

'Hello,' Kyosuke replied.

'I hope you didn't have problems while training,' Sae said to Seisuke.

'No,' he replied, 'once again, thanks for making sure the road stayed clear.'

'No problem,' Sae said then she added, 'I'm ready when you are so…'

'Let's do this,' Seisuke interrupted her with one of his most charming smiles.

Sae just nodded and soon both cars were lined up at the bottom of the car park. Kizuna noticed how Ryoko was a little out of it and made a mental note to talk about her to Kyosuke who was now busy giving the usual pre-race pep talk to his younger brother. A bit further ahead and sitting down on the beach in the dark, she smiled seeing Yuta and Shigeru who seemed to be even less interested in the race than usual, probably hoping that they would see that UFO again.

Kizuna focused her attention on the two cars when Seisuke and Sae turned the engine of their RZ-1s on, Kyosuke then joined the rest of his team while some local guy stood in front of the two racers ready to do the countdown: 'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

Right then Seisuke and Sae took off burning a little bit of tyre in the process. Seisuke seemed to be a little faster but, just as they were approaching the first corner of the road, he slowed down a bit, almost as if he were doing it on purpose and, just then, Sae overtook him with absurd ease making everyone in her team cheer as loudly as if she had just won the race. Meanwhile most of the Golden Arrows frowned in concern.

'Kyosuke-san,' Izawa started, 'what happened there?'

'Why the hell did he slow down?' Junya wanted to know.

'Is this some sort of tactic?' Kazuya asked him.

'Kyosuke…' Kizuna said then, looking at him a bit more closely, she saw that her boyfriend had the just-as-planned expression of someone who had everything under control, she grinned and said, 'it'll be fine, right?'

'We'll see,' Kyosuke replied clearly refusing to elaborate.

_To be continued…_


	33. Chapter Thirty Two

**Golden Arrows **

_Chapter Thirty Two_

By the third corner of their uphill climb, Seisuke figured out the reason why Sae was the best local racer: the girl seemed to be as fearless and aggressive as she was neat and the racing lines she used had a level of precision he'd only seen before in his own older brother's driving style. Again, he thought trying to find some sort of consolation, this was her home turf and she obviously knew that road like the back of her hand.

That actually played in his own favour for, just as Kyosuke had predicted, the best way to keep up with Sae would be by copying whatever she did and soon Seisuke found himself following the girl around a slow left-hander which marked the start of the steepest part of the road where he saw her increasing the throttle making the car go even faster. Even if he had had the time to take a peek at the speedometer, he didn't need to check it to know that they were travelling at a stupidly high speed.

A few corners later, both RZ-1s got to the peak of the road having long left behind the beach and its parking area when, all of a sudden, Seisuke found himself darting down the short section of the road which led to the bridge. Only then he did check the digital counter which told him something his brain nearly refused to process: his Mazda had now reached a staggering one hundred and seventy kilometres an hour.

Swallowing hard and fighting the urge to brake, Seisuke kept on following Sae hoping that by copying what she did he would not end up crashing against the start of the bridge or, worse, falling down into the river. In any case, he was only too happy to see the brake lights on Sae's car when the two RZ-1s finally reached the bottom of the downhill, making the speed drop to a slightly more reasonable level.

Funnily enough, it was just as the two cars went across the bridge that Sae chose to sharpen her driving even more and by the time they made it to the other side, she had somehow managed to increase the gap between the two cars leaving Seisuke a good two or three meters behind.

'What the…' he muttered to himself.

'What's wrong?' he heard his brother's voice saying over the radio.

'Nothing,' Seisuke lied.

He knew it was too soon to apply the second of the three instructions his older brother had given him before the race but he knew that unless he did something, Sae would just pull away and, for the third trick to work he needed to be right behind the red RZ-1. For this reason, Seisuke stopped copying Sae's lines and he started driving using his own style, choosing the way he traced the corners following his own instinct.

Meanwhile, back at the beach, Kizuna approached Kyosuke while he got out of his car.

'I know it's not the best moment,' she nearly whispered, 'but I'd like to have a word with you.'

'Am I in trouble?' Kyosuke asked trying a joke.

'No,' Kizuna replied with a soft laugh, 'you're not,' she added getting serious then, indicating Ryoko who was currently sitting inside the 350Z, she lowered her voice even more and said, 'but I think she and Akito are.'

Kyosuke's eyebrows creased into a frown and, after checking that everyone seemed busy either talking to each other or trying to follow the race, he took her by her elbow and gently guided her towards the beach which, asides Yuta and Shige who were too busy doing their own thing to care, was devoid of people.

'What's wrong?' he then asked her.

Kizuna tried to give him a skimmed version of her conversation with Ryoko earlier on that day.

'I think she's overdoing things,' she finished.

'I agree,' Kyosuke said then, he thought about it for a short while and then, he looked at her and added, 'to be honest, I understand what she's trying to do since I share some of her concerns, especially about the fact that Akito needs his peace of mind now more than ever however, I think she's handling this the wrong way.'

'I know,' Kizuna said, 'what can we do?'

'Us?' he asked, 'not much,' he added, 'other than keeping an eye on them.'

'But…'

'Kizuna,' he said taking her hand, 'the bond between those two is incredibly strong and I'm pretty sure that they'll get through this without too many problems. That said, I've already decided that I'll do my best to help Akito cope with all that's happening around him and I'd appreciate it if you could do the same with Ryoko, after all, I think she's already confiding in you an awful lot more than she's ever done with me.'

'It helps that I'm a girl too,' Kizuna commented, trying to make him feel a bit better.

'It does,' he confirmed, 'but that's not the only thing. Ryoko has a lot of other girlfriends, Kaori is one of them, but I think she sees in you the older sister she never had and that I suspect she wanted to have.'

'I have a confession to make,' Kizuna said, 'I kind of see her as a younger sister too.'

'There you go,' Kyosuke concluded giving her the sort of smile which made her want to kiss him.

Unfortunately, right at that moment they heard Kazuya's voice calling Kyosuke's name and, with a pang, they both remembered that poor Seisuke was in the middle of a very difficult race and that they'd stopped paying attention to that. Exchanging a guilt-laden glance, the two started running back into the car park.

Seisuke was in trouble.

Not only the gap between the two cars had not decreased but by the time the RZ-1s went past the half-point of the road, just before the two tunnels, the girl had decided to start going even faster and Seisuke was having a lot of problems just to keep up with her rhythm but very soon he figured out the reason why: Sae's lines were no longer as neat as before and Seisuke let out a humourless chuckle.

He realised that despite his best efforts to impose his own driving style, he'd somehow gone back to copying what she did and since she'd probably noticed that, she was now forcing him to tackle the corners in a way which was making him slower since, right now, she only needed to stay ahead to win the race. She really was a cerebral racer and, Seisuke guessed, that was the reason why she was unbeaten on the Ocean Drive.

Alas, he had caught on her strategy and, making an effort, he started focusing on his own driving forgetting all about hers and the results were almost instantly obvious: within just a couple of corners, the white RZ-1's front bumper was nearly stuck to the red RZ-1's rear one and as they entered the first, shorter tunnel, the two cars travelled as one. To her credit, Sae did try to pull away from him a couple of times but Seisuke was quick enough to close the gap once again using one of the tricks Eiji had taught him during their training.

Three corners later, Seisuke started preparing himself mentally for what he was about to do. The two cars were now cruising down the narrow road with literally no distance between them, they had a tight right-hander then a tighter left-hander and after that they had another right-hand corner which led straight into the second windowless-tunnel. He followed Sae into it and after covering three quarters of its length, Seisuke's hand went to press the button which would turn the RZ-1's headlights off.

'It's now or never,' he whispered so low that not even the radio picked it up.

In front of him, Sae was feeling awfully confused and disoriented while she tried to figure out what had happened to the other Mazda when, exiting the tunnel and using the way the road widened a bit, she saw with stupor Seisuke's RZ-1 first levelling with her, turning the headlights back on and overtaking her in one single and fast manoeuvre which left her staring powerlessly at the taillights of the first car which had passed her in the Ocean Drive ever since she'd started racing there.

Meanwhile, Seisuke was happy being back in his element and now that he was ahead, he would block every single one of the probably furious attacks which he suspected she would shower him with. Weirdly enough, within just a few corners he realised something rather upsetting: it seemed like Sae simply didn't care anymore about the race and she, not only was not trying to pass him, but she had started slowing down.

Feeling more confused than ever, he tried to convince himself that it was a trick when he saw her Mazda coming to a full stop in one of the rare spots where the lack of space made it impossible for anyone to stand there to watch the race. In a split second, Seisuke made a decision and, moving his foot onto the brake, he slammed it making his RZ-1 come to a complete stop just before yet another right-hander.

For a moment there, he feared that Sae would just start driving again but then he saw the girl getting out of her car and that made him do the same so, unfastening his seatbelt he climbed out of his RZ-1 and said:

'What's wrong?'

'You've won,' she said, her voice sounding clipped with fury, probably at herself, he suspected.

'No, I haven't,' he countered, 'we still have…'

'Listen,' Sae interrupted him now getting closer, 'I know this road and I know that there are only three spots in which one can overtake and you've passed me using the last one of the three,' she stopped talking and then, she shook her head and asked him, 'what the heck did you do back there?'

'It's called a blind attack,' Seisuke said trying to keep an even tone.

'A what?' she asked sounding incredulous.

'It's a technique someone I know used while he was actively racing,' Seisuke explained, 'it was the first time I used it and, I have to be honest with you, it's pretty frightening driving guided only by the headlights of the car in front. I could have easily crashed.'

'But you didn't,' Sae pointed out a little dryly.

'I was lucky,' he insisted.

'No,' Sae countered, 'your skill has nothing to do with luck. You've beaten me fair and square.'

Seisuke felt horrible all of a sudden and tried again to persuade her to continue the race:

'Look, let's just carry on with…'

'No,' she repeated, 'it's your win, accept it.'

'I just…'

'Hey,' she said now trying to smile a little, 'if you really feel that bad, I might let you take me out for a drink.'

Hearing that made his eyes widen in shock.

'Er…' he hesitated, 'I'm…I'm…too young to drink and…'

Her laughter made him stop stuttering before he could try and tell her that he had a girlfriend.

'I was kidding,' she said clearly laughing at him, 'you're really cute and all but I think I'm too old for you.'

'Ah,' he gasped feeling a gush of relief then something made him add, 'you're not _that _old though.'

For some reason, that widened her smile and, gently slapping his cheek twice, she said:

'Keep up the flattery and I might consider forgiving you for beating me.'

Something in her tone made him swallow hard and, fighting to get some resemblance of cool back, he said:

'I'll do my best.'

'I'm sure you will,' she replied then, no longer smiling, she added, 'I think it's best if we drive back down.'

Then, before he could even come up with one last attempt at trying to convince her to continue the race, he saw her walking back to her ride and, climbing into it, she started the very difficult manoeuvre to turn the RZ-1 round so that they could make their way towards the beach. By the time he got back into his car, he saw a few people appearing from around the corner, probably wondering what had happened to the two racers but before any of them could question him, he too turned his car round as quickly as he could.

Still feeling rather shocked about the abrupt way in which the race had ended, Seisuke's brain replayed the conversation he'd had with Sae and for a fleeting instant, he entertained the idea of taking her out for that drink when, feeling cold with guilt, he shook his head trying to get rid of such a colossally stupid notion before he mentally apologised to Kaori for even thinking about doing something so horrible to her. He was so stunned about it that he even forgot to report by radio to his brother about the outcome of the race.

For this reason, everyone back at the beach was surprised to see the two cars returning in what was a too short time, even for Sae's high standards and it seemed like she had not told anyone about the result either for, the instant she and Seisuke climbed out of their cars, everyone from the Typhoon Tigers went on to congratulate her for her latest win while the members of the Golden Arrows were at a loss about what to do.

'He won,' Sae suddenly announced.

'What?' several people asked with various degrees of incredulity.

'He's beaten me,' Sae repeated calmly.

Just then, the situation seemed to reverse and while her team looked like they had not understood a single word of what she'd said, the Golden Arrows started smiling all at the same time while they closed around Seisuke laughing, slapping him on his back or, like Kyosuke, tousling his groomed hair like he was a five year old and, for once, he didn't mind at all, in fact, he was starting to realise what he'd just accomplished.

'Aniki,' he exclaimed amidst the chaos, 'it worked!'

'Of course it did,' Kyosuke said offering him one of his rare grins.

'It was so scary,' Seisuke explained, 'I can't believe Takumi-san did that with the 86…'

He stopped talking when he saw his older brother signalling him to be quiet and he saw Sae and her team walking towards them. To her credit, she didn't look anywhere near as upset as he thought she'd be, in fact, she looked…relieved. As if she felt better now that her winning streak had been broken. It was rather odd.

'Your little brother was amazing,' she said talking to Kyosuke while everyone else paid attention too.

'He's not bad,' he accepted modestly.

'But something tells me that he isn't the best in your team,' Sae continued obviously not wanting to offend.

This time, Kyosuke didn't say anything.

'Oh well,' Sae said, 'it's a pity you aren't from around here, it'd be fun to set up regular challenges with you.'

'It would,' Kyosuke replied, 'but we're leaving tomorrow.'

'It obviously isn't my lucky night,' Sae said shrugging, 'but it's okay, we live in the same country and I'm sure there will be other opportunities, who knows? We might decide to travel up north to meet up with you.'

'You'd be more than welcome to come to Gunma,' Kyosuke replied.

Sae just smiled and, after that, she gave a little wave and said:

'Have a safe journey back home.'

Kyosuke nodded to that and then, she left followed by her twin brother Ryu, who still looked like he couldn't believe what had just happened, and the rest of her team. Kyosuke then turned round to face his own team and ordered everyone to get in their cars so that they could drive back to Kazuya's mansion where inevitably they all celebrated the Golden Arrows latest win as well as pestered Seisuke with questions about his race.

Being the last night of their holidays and knowing that they wouldn't need to get up early, Kyosuke let them carry on, even allowing them to do a small bonfire at the beach where Kazuya and Seisuke had the brilliant idea of trying to roast some marshmallows. In the end, no one went to bed until the wee hours of the morning and it was nothing short of a miracle that they all managed to get up in time to join Ryoko who was already watching the preliminaries of Akito's second F3 race.

To their dismay, they saw on TV that the Shanghai circuit was drenched and a heavy downpour delayed the start for over twenty minutes then, after the rain subdued a little, the organisation decided to start the race with the safety car in front of the twenty eight racers. This, of course, prevented any overtaking for the first few laps and by the time the safety car decided to get back in and the race proper started, the rain had nearly stopped and Andrea Guelfi went on to take the lead after overtaking Hideki who stayed in second place for the rest of the race. Akito, in what was a very conservative move, decided to settle for third.

'Another podium finish,' Seisuke commented in awe.

'Two races,' Kazuya said, 'and two podiums, he really couldn't have started better, could he?'

'No, he couldn't,' Kyosuke confirmed while keeping an eye on Ryoko.

'Shouldn't we get going?' Junya asked already getting up from his seat.

'Yes, we should,' Kei confirmed, 'I have to work tomorrow morning.'

'Me too,' Izawa replied.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'this time we won't have any race but, please, remember that we should at least _try_ to stay within the speed limits, okay?'

Alarmingly enough no one reassured him with a reply and the result was that they made it back to Maebashi within less than ten hours, all eager to show to Junya that he wasn't the only one who could go fast while driving on a motorway and, for this reason, after making sure Kizuna got home safely, the three Takahashi arrived at their home just before midnight. Oddly enough, they found Keisuke and Kyoko still up.

'Hello there,' Keisuke said seeing his precious daughter and his two nephews.

'Hi,' Ryoko replied, 'what are you doing awake?'

'We needed to talk to you,' Kyoko replied.

'Is she in trouble?' Seisuke asked his aunt giving her an almost hopeful look.

'No, she's not,' Kyoko replied with a soft chuckle.

'In that case,' Seisuke said looking a little disappointed, 'we'll go to bed.'

'It's okay if you stay,' Keisuke said, 'this also concerns you.'

As soon as the three of them were sitting in front of them, Keisuke glanced quickly at his wife and then said:

'Takumi called me this afternoon to tell me that the Federation has decided to grant Akito a temporary license which will allow him to race for the PIAA-Tanaka team for the rest of the F3 season.'

'That's brilliant!' Kyosuke said.

'Needless to say,' Keisuke continued, 'Tanaka-san has already offered him a contract and Takumi has agreed to co-sign it. The reason why we're telling you this is that from now on, Akito won't train at the Centre.'

'What do you mean?' Ryoko asked looking a little confused.

'Honey,' Kyoko said, 'the PIAA-Tanaka team have their own facilities and it's only logical that the want their driver to use them for his regular training. After all, it'd be difficult for Akito to test their car at the Centre.'

'I understand that,' Ryoko said, 'but, why are you telling me this?'

'We're not going to be seeing much of Akito now, are we?' Kyosuke asked his aunt and uncle.

'No,' Keisuke confirmed, 'also,' he added glancing at Ryoko, 'he still has two more rounds of the karting championship, the next one it's in less than two weeks from now and, in addition to that, he has his mid-term exams coming up and Takumi has told me that if he doesn't do well he'll be forced to repeat the year.'

'The reason why we're telling you this,' Kyoko continued looking at her daughter, 'is because Takumi said that Akito is very worried about how you'd take this but we've reassured him saying that you'll be fine.

'Of course,' Ryoko hurried to say.

'Good,' Keisuke said finally offering her a smile, 'I don't need to tell you how important it is for Akito to stay focused. He's building the foundation of his career as a professional racer and if he messes things up…'

'Dad, I understand,' Ryoko interrupted her father, 'and I agree with what you're saying.'

'Sweetie…'

'Mum,' she said looking very serious, 'Akito has nothing to worry about. I'll be fine.'

'Are you sure?' Kyosuke asked her.

'Yes,' she replied firmly, 'now, if that's all you wanted to tell me, I'd like to go to bed.'

'Alright,' Keisuke said.

With this, they all watched the girl as she got up and, leaving her trolley there she just took her handbag and stepped out of the room on her way to her bedroom. Seeing this and remembering his conversation with Kizuna, Kyosuke renewed his intentions to, as much as he could, keep an eye on both Ryoko and Akito.

For the following three weeks, they realised that Keisuke's warning had not been exaggerated and, other than the very few times in which Akito came to the house to spend an hour or less with Ryoko and the time when they'd gone to see him acing his penultimate karting race, the two Takahashi brothers didn't see much more of their best friend and, even when they did, he didn't seem too keen on talking to them about racing.

If that wasn't worrying enough and after his maiden victory, the press had gone nuts and had immediately labelled Akito as this year's F3 super-rookie and, to the poor kid's horror, several journalists had already asked the PIAA-Tanaka Team to let them interview him. Thankfully, Tanaka-san had asked them to wait until Akito would be used to being in the team, telling them that they would be allowed to talk to him in the eleventh and twelfth rounds in Okayama Circuit which would be held on the third weekend of September.

Despite this, Akito somehow managed to remember about Ryoko's sixteenth birthday and on the morning of September fifteenth, the girl went down to the breakfast room holding her mobile phone in front of her smiling while she re-read the message he'd just sent her. Most of her family was there and after they all wished her a happy birthday, Kyoko busied herself to prepare some of the pancakes Ryoko liked and said:

'You look very happy this morning.'

'I am,' Ryoko said sitting down, 'Akito's just told me that he'll do his very best to make it to the party.'

'That's great news,' Kyosuke commented while he got an extra portion of rice from the cooker.

'It is,' Kyoko agreed then, she added, 'I'll pick you up from school so we can go to the Centre and finish preparing things for this evening. I've had a karaoke set installed at the main meeting room like you asked.'

'I still don't get why we aren't allowed to be there,' Keisuke complained before Ryoko had the time to speak.

'Darling,' Kyoko explained trying to be patient, 'I'm sure that none of Ryoko's friends want to see us there.'

'Why not?' he nearly grunted, 'we're her parents, we should…'

'Dad,' Ryoko stopped him, 'we'll go out for dinner tomorrow, right?'

'Yes,' he replied sounding unhappy, 'but it's not the same. I wanted to see you blowing the candles and…'

'Come on Keisuke,' Akiko said with a rather patronising smile, 'your daughter is turning _sixteen_, not _six_.'

Keisuke had a so-what expression but, knowing better than to argue with his sister-in-law, he decided to let it go and, instead, he glanced at his beloved daughter and pouting in a very childish way, he told her:

'Since we're not invited to your party, we'll give you your present tomorrow.'

Ryoko bit her lip trying not to laugh at her father's petty attempt at getting revenge and just nodded at him.

'Alright,' he said grumpily, 'I'll go to work now, I shall see you all later.'

They all watched as the ex-racer got up from his chair and, without giving the two women of his life his customary good-bye kiss, he just left still whinnying to himself about the fact that as a father he had every right to be at his daughter's birthday party and that it was very unfair of them to exclude him like that.

'He's really mad, isn't he?' Ryoko asked her mother looking a little worried.

'Nah,' Kyoko replied dismissingly, 'you know your father and how much he likes complaining about stuff.'

'That's right,' Akiko added, 'don't worry about anything but your party and let us deal with him, okay?'

'Alright,' Ryoko accepted sounding a little unsure.

'Ryoko,' Seisuke said finishing his coffee, 'hurry up and eat or I won't take you to school.'

'Hey,' she replied going back to her spoilt-little-girl mode, 'be nice to me: it's my birthday.'

Seisuke rolled his eyes while he poured himself some more coffee so that he could do something while he waited for the Birthday Girl to be ready and, ten minutes later, Kyoko went to make a few phone calls, Akiko drove to the Arakawa Hospital to join her husband who had spent the night there and Kyosuke went to meet up with Kizuna so that the two would go to MIT together. Meanwhile, Seisuke drove Ryoko to her school.

'Is Kaori coming tonight?' she asked him on their way there.

'Probably,' Seisuke replied vaguely.

'Is everything alright with her?' Ryoko asked trying not to sound too prying.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'it looks like our time apart has worked wonders. She said that while she loved Milan, she missed me a lot. I know it's to be expected but it's the first time Kaori's told me something like that.'

'Well,' Ryoko commented, 'she does love you.'

'Yeah,' Seisuke said, 'she does.'

'I've been meaning to ask you something,' Ryoko said as they turned into the street where the school was.

'What is it?' Seisuke asked her.

'Did anything happen between you and that girl from Fukuoka?' Ryoko asked as casually as she could.

'What?' a shocked Seisuke nearly wheezed, 'Ryoko, there is no way I…'

'Hey,' she defended herself, 'I was just asking. I noticed the way she looked at you and…'

'No,' Seisuke stopped her sounding very serious, 'I love Kaori, I would never cheat on her, okay?'

'I know that,' Ryoko hurried to say.

'Good,' Seisuke said stopping the car just outside the school's entrance, 'I hope you don't mention any of that to Kaori, I'd hate for her to get weird ideas over something which…was nothing really.'

'Of course,' Ryoko replied, 'I wouldn't want to cause you problems with her.'

'Good,' he repeated, 'now, off to school or I'll be late for my lecture.'

'Okay,' Ryoko said allowing herself a tiny smile, 'the party starts at six, don't be late!'

'I won't,' Seisuke promised while she climbed out of his car.

A few moments later, Ryoko saw the white RZ-1 driving down and, soon, she was joined by her best friend Yayoi and a few of her classmates who promptly wished her a happy birthday as well as giving her a huge card in preparation for the party they had all been invited to. Thanks to that, Ryoko had an excellent day and by the time her mother picked her up from school, she simply could not wait for the party to start.

'I think we're all set in here,' Kyoko said observing their work at the Centre's main meeting room.

'We are,' Ryoko confirmed, 'the decorations are really cute Mum.'

'They are,' she agreed, 'now, the catering company should have everything under control but if there's any problem tell Morita-san, she's in charge of talking to them to make sure all goes as smoothly as possible.'

'Alright,' Ryoko replied.

'Have fun,' Kyoko said before kissing her on top of her head.

'I will,' she promised.

A few minutes later, Kyosuke with Kizuna and Seisuke with Kaori joined her in welcoming her guests, most of them were friends from her school and a few of the girls from her ice skating team as well as a couple of the people from the ikebana lessons she had attended a couple of years ago. Alas, Akito was still not there.

'He's late,' Ryoko said checking her watch, it was half past six and that made her frown in worry.

'Have you tried calling him?' Kizuna asked her.

'Not yet,' Ryoko replied, 'I don't want to stress him.'

'Why don't you text him?' Kaori suggested, 'it's less annoying than a call.'

'That's true,' Ryoko said and pulled her phone out of her handbag when it started ringing, 'it's Akito!' she exclaimed looking a bit happier, 'hello?' she said answering it. She then spent a few moments listening and her frown got a little deeper, only for her to nod a couple of times while she said, 'I understand, it's okay.'

'What's wrong?' Kyosuke asked her seeing her closing the call.

'He's not coming, is he?' Seisuke added.

'He _is_ coming,' Ryoko said almost sounding offended, 'it's just that he's going to be a bit late.'

'How late?' Kizuna asked gently.

'He's not sure,' Ryoko replied sounding a bit miserable, 'the team is getting things ready to go to Okayama tomorrow so he needed to stay a bit longer than he thought for some briefing with his mechanics. He said he and his father will leave as soon as they can but that he is not sure of how long it'll take.'

'What about the cake?' Kaori wanted to know.

'It's in a fridge,' Ryoko said, 'Morita-san has told me that it can hold for a few hours.'

'Ryoko…' Kyosuke started.

'It's okay,' she insisted with a slightly forced-looking smile, 'it's a party so let's go and have fun!'

They all watched while she went to join her friends and the two couples exchanged an equally worried look and, for once, even Kaori seemed to be concerned about Ryoko and between the four of them, they did their best to make sure that Ryoko was kept entertained while she waited for Akito to show up. Kyosuke was so determined to make that wait seem as short as possible that he even offered to sing at the karaoke.

'Oh my god,' Kizuna said trying not to cover her ears.

'He's not so good, is he?' Seisuke laughed while he too went up onto the stage to try and help his brother.

In the end, it was nearly eight o'clock when Akito quietly entered the room and, by that time, the party was in full swing, with people playing videogames, singing or dancing in the rather large space provided. Ryoko failed to see him since she was currently talking to Yayoi and a couple of her classmates but Seisuke did and hurrying towards him, he grabbed him by his arm and took him straight onto the stage while Kyosuke made sure the cake was brought in. Kizuna and Kaori teamed up for once to help keeping Ryoko distracted.

'What are you doing?' an alarmed Akito asked Seisuke.

'Since you're so late,' Seisuke said, 'you're in charge of singing happy birthday to Ryoko.'

Akito looked panicked for an instant then, both realising that Seisuke was right and that the future doctor would not take a no for an answer, he took the mike while he left the bag containing Ryoko's present on the floor next to him and, just then, he saw Morita-san and a couple of the catering staff pushed the cake into the room. Taking a deep breath and, following the music coming from the karaoke, Akito started singing happy birthday to Ryoko, keeping his eyes focused on her almost as if he was trying to block everyone else.

'Oh wow,' Kizuna whispered while Akito sang, 'he's so good.'

'His mother was a very famous singer,' Kyosuke explained.

'Natsuki-san?' Kizuna asked looking confused.

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'Natsuki-san isn't Akito's real mum. His mother was Yoshimura Minami, a very famous singer from the noughties. She died in a car crash while she was pregnant with Akito.'

'Oh gosh,' Kizuna said looking horrified.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke said, 'Natsuki-san adopted him after she married Takumi-san and…'

His explanation was cut short when, after Akito finished his song, everyone started applauding and a speechless Ryoko was pushed by Kizuna and Kaori towards her cake so that she could blow the sixteen candles. Akito stepped down from the stage to join them and, with a sheepish smile on his lips, he said:

'Happy Birthday Ryoko, I'm really sorry for being so late.'

'It's okay,' Ryoko said with a huge grin and her face still lit by the candles, 'it really is okay.'

'Come on,' he said returning the smile, 'make a wish.'

She did and then, she blew out all of the candles and, soon after that, Akito took her by her hand so that he could give her his present: a beautiful traditional dress he had got for her in China made of dark blue silk.

'You like it?' he asked her looking a little doubtful, 'you know, I actually picked it myself and…'

Her answer was obvious and, hugging him tightly to her, she said:

'This is the best birthday ever.'

Sometime later, while they were enjoying the cake, both Kyosuke and Seisuke received a text message from Kazuya telling them about a team that just got in touch with him to challenge the Golden Arrows to a race in the Shomaru Pass.

'That's in Saitama, isn't it?' Seisuke asked his older brother.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied.

'What's going on?' Kizuna asked them.

'We've received a challenge from a Saitama team,' Kyosuke replied

'Hey,' Seisuke said talking to Akito who had just joined them, 'your father raced there, didn't he?'

'Where?' the young racer asked.

'In Shomaru Pass,' Kyosuke replied.

'I don't know,' was Akito's uninterested reply, 'why?'

'We just got a challenge from a team there,' Seisuke repeated.

'Akito…' Kyosuke started.

'To be honest with you,' Akito stopped him, 'I really don't care about that now.'

With that and leaving a very worried set of Takahashi brothers behind, he went back to where Ryoko was.

_To be continued…_


	34. Chapter Thirty Three

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirty Three_

Before any of them could do anything to stop him, Kyosuke, Kizuna and Kaori watched Seisuke going after Akito and, by the time they moved to follow him, the youngest of the Takahashi brothers had already grabbed the racer's arm, forcing him to turn round so that they'd be face to face. Akito's expression went from surprised and incredulous to, hearing his best friend's aggressive tone, looking angry and a bit scared.

'What the hell was that just now?' Seisuke asked him.

'Let me go,' Akito replied crossly, snatching his arm free.

'Since when don't you care about our team?' Seisuke demanded looking even angrier.

'Seisuke, don't…' Kyosuke started.

'I know you've won a race and that's a big deal,' Seisuke continued, blatantly ignoring his brother, 'but...'

'That's got nothing to do with it!' Akito interrupted him still rubbing his arm.

'Then what is it?' Seisuke asked narrowing his eyes.

'You wouldn't understand,' Akito said frowning at him.

'What the hell is that supposed to mean?' Seisuke almost shouted.

'I…'

'Oh,' the future doctor interrupted him, 'I get it, you'd rather hang around with your F3 buddies, right?'

An increasingly furious Akito opened his mouth to protest while both Kyosuke and Kizuna took a step forward ready to stop the nonsense but, before anyone could do or say anything, Takumi entered the room clearly looking for his son.

'Akito, we've got to go,' the ex-racer announced.

'Already?' Ryoko asked.

'Dad,' Akito said, 'can't I stay a bit longer?'

'No,' Takumi replied, 'it's nearly ten o'clock and you need to be up in less than six hours from now.'

'I know that,' Akito said sounding almost grumpy.

'It's okay,' Ryoko said trying to be understanding, 'we'll see each other at the circuit, right?'

'Er…' Akito hesitated, 'about that, it looks like Tanaka-san didn't get any extra visitor passes for us…'

'Why not?' Ryoko asked sounding very disappointed.

'I don't know,' Akito replied, 'he wasn't too keen on talking about it, was he Dad?'

'Akito,' Takumi said evasively, 'we need to get going now.'

'Alright, alright,' Akito said then, glancing at Ryoko and sounding hopeful, he added, 'can I still call you before each of the races? You know…I…'

'You HAVE to call me,' Ryoko replied trying to offer him a small but reassuring smile.

'Thanks,' Akito said returning the smile, 'I should also have a day off next week. We could go out then.'

'That'd be great,' she replied, her grin widening.

'We'll do anything you want,' Akito promised.

'Okay,' she said nodding once, 'don't worry about it, I understand.'

'Thanks,' Akito repeated looking a little relieved then, he glanced at his two best friends frowning a little.

'Akito,' Takumi insisted, 'we really need to go.'

'I'm coming,' Akito replied still looking at the Takahashi brothers then, he sighed and shook his head once before he followed his father out of the room. Ryoko stopped to glare at Seisuke and then she went after the two Fujiwara so that she could walk with Akito to the 86 and spend a few more minutes with him.

'Great job, Seisuke,' Kyosuke said to his brother, injecting a large dose of sarcasm in his voice.

'Aniki…'

'Let's not talk about this now,' Kizuna said indicating with her head all the guests who were watching intently trying to figure out what was going on. Kyosuke nodded while Seisuke just stood there still looking rather upset as well as guilty while Kaori started at him, looking like she was debating with herself whether to speak her mind or not. Ultimately, she chose to wait for Ryoko to come back to see what happened next.

To her disappointment, when Ryoko stepped back into the room, the girl went to talk to Yayoi and her group of high school friends, obviously intending to spend the rest of the party ignoring her cousins and their girlfriends. This icy attitude lasted all the way until the moment when they went back home and Ryoko just sat in the front passenger seat of the yellow RZ-1 in silence hugging Akito's present to her chest while Seisuke was off to take Kaori home and Kizuna drove back to her apartment in her 350Z.

'Ryoko…' Kyosuke started.

'Forget it,' she said.

'Seisuke didn't mean any…'

'I said: forget it,' she repeated frostily, 'if you two can't understand what's going on, I won't explain it to you.'

With that, she just looked through her window, clearly refusing to speak to her cousin. Kyosuke frowned a bit but decided that it was wiser to wait until they'd all be home to talk about it. Alas, the instant they got back to the Takahashi residence, Ryoko just darted out of the car and rushed into the house, making her way to her room before Kyosuke had the time to activate his car's central locking. When he finally followed his cousin into the house, he found his father, his Uncle Keisuke and his Aunt Kyoko looking slightly worried.

'What happened?' Kyoko asked him.

'Er…' he hesitated, wondering if it wouldn't be better to wait for Seisuke to return.

'Did she have a fight with Akito?' Keisuke asked him looking slightly murderous.

'No,' Kyosuke replied then, he sighed and proceeded to explain what had happened back at the party.

'Oh,' Kyoko gasped.

'Son,' Ryosuke said looking a little disappointed in him, 'you really don't understand Akito's feelings, do you?'

'Dad…'

His answer got interrupted by the arrival of Seisuke and the instant the future doctor stepped into the living room, Keisuke got up and asked them to wait there for a bit. He returned a couple of minutes later with a manila envelope in his hand and a pyjama clad Ryoko looking like she was making a huge effort to humour her father. Then, before anyone had the time to say anything, the ex-racer gave the envelope to his daughter.

'This is your birthday present from us,' he explained to her.

Ryoko opened the envelope and, from it, she extracted four all-zone passes for the upcoming F3 race.

'What's…'

'Your father,' Kyoko explained, 'will take you and your cousins to this weekend's race.'

'Takumi gave me those passes without telling Akito,' Keisuke added, 'he thinks Akito will get nervous if he knows we're all going to be there, for this reason we chose not to tell you anything so you wouldn't tell him.'

'Also,' Ryosuke intervened glancing at his two sons, 'it'll be a good chance for you two to see what the professional world looks like. To be honest,' he added, 'I'd love to go myself but…'

'Why don't you?' Ryoko said interrupting her uncle.

'We only have four passes,' Keisuke explained.

'I know that,' Ryoko said then, glancing back at her uncle, she added, 'you should go, I'll stay home.'

'Are you sure?' Ryosuke asked her.

'Yes,' Ryoko replied firmly, 'it's not like you have that many opportunities to go and have fun, is it?'

'Sweetie,' Kyoko said looking at her daughter, 'it's your birthday present…'

'Precisely,' she countered, 'therefore I can do whatever I want with it, can't I?'

'Yes, of course,' Keisuke said, 'I just thought that you'd like to go and watch Akito's race at the track.'

'I'd love to,' Ryoko accepted, 'but I don't really like the idea of showing up without telling Akito first and there will be other races I can go to. Besides,' she added glaring at Seisuke, 'you need to apologise to him for being an insensitive idiot and I don't want to be there to witness something as pathetic as that.'

With that, and before anyone had the time to say anything, she gave the passes back to her very astonished father and, turning round, the now sixteen year old left the room looking very proud of her decision while the rest of the Takahashi family tried to figure out what had happened to their youngest member.

'She's definitely grown up,' Akiko sentenced.

'Yes, she has,' Ryosuke agreed then, he briefly glanced at the passes before looking back at his wife, 'are you sure I can go? There's an investors meeting this Saturday and…'

'I'll manage,' Akiko interrupted him, 'I think it'll be great for you to take your brother and the boys and have a men-only weekend together. Kyoko and I will hold the fort here on our own just fine, won't we?'

'Of course,' Kyoko replied firmly.

'Alright,' Ryosuke said, 'in that case…'

'Fantastic!' Keisuke exclaimed excitedly, 'Aniki, it's been ages since you've gone anywhere near a circuit.'

'It hasn't been _that_ long,' Ryosuke countered.

'Dad,' Kyosuke pointed out, 'the one at the centre doesn't really count.'

Everyone smiled watching the almighty and well-respected doctor opening his mouth to protest then, realising that his arguments would be invalid, he closed it again and very wisely he decided to remain silent.

The morning after at exactly eight o'clock in the morning, the two sets of Takahashi brothers got onboard the family's silver Mazda MPV while Akiko, Kyoko and Ryoko watched Ryosuke driving the vehicle down the lane and onto the main road. There, the four men greeted them one last time before they set off towards the Kan'Etsu Expressway where they would start the nearly nine and a half hour drive down to Okayama.

'Dad,' Kyosuke said from the backseat, 'you don't think we'll bump into the PIAA-Tanaka Team along the way, do you?'

'I don't expect so,' Ryosuke replied, 'they left three hours before we did.'

'I know that,' Kyosuke said, 'but they're driving a truck, aren't they?'

'Yes, that's right,' Ryosuke replied, 'but I still don't think we'll catch them. Besides, I'll be taking easy too.'

'What do you mean?' Keisuke asked frowning a little.

'I mean what I just said,' Ryosuke replied calmly, 'it's the first leisure trip I take in a long time so I'll just drive slowly, enjoying the scenery.'

It was very hard for the other three Takahashi not to show their disappointment, not even Seisuke who, up to then had remained oddly quiet. Kyosuke glanced at his younger brother remembering the brief conversation the two had had just before going to their respective bedrooms and hoping that this weekend would clear up a few of his own doubts regarding the reason behind Akito's blatant disinterest in the Golden Arrows.

'What are you looking at?' Seisuke suddenly asked him.

'Er…' Kyosuke hesitated, 'nothing, sorry…I was lost in my own thoughts.'

'You were thinking about Akito, weren't you?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied honestly.

'Boys,' Keisuke said speaking from the front seat, 'forget about that now and look at that instead.'

The two brothers stared at the point their uncle was indicating and to their stupor, they saw a perfect rainbow colouring the morning sky. They found it odd to see it there since there didn't seem to be any clouds threatening rain but, in any case, both Kyosuke and Seisuke smiled at the good omen.

'See?' Ryosuke said with a soft smile on his aged but still handsome face, 'this is the reason why I'm driving slowly.'

Everyone decided to humour the head of the Takahashi family by not saying anything to that but both Kyosuke and Seisuke were only too happy when, nearly five hours after they left Maebashi and just as they were approaching Nagoya they stopped for a quick lunch their Uncle Keisuke somehow managed to convince his brother to let him drive the rest of the way.

'Alright,' Ryosuke said, 'I'll take a nap.'

'Sure,' Keisuke replied, biting his lower lip to stop himself from smiling seeing the huge grin which appeared on both of his nephews' faces. That and the fact that they really had been travelling at a geriatric speed, made him very eager to step on the accelerator to try and test if the van's carefully maintained engine was still in top form. Thanks to that, they covered the distance from Nagoya to Okayama in a lot less than the estimated four and a half hours arriving at the hotel where they would be staying during that weekend just before half past five in the evening.

'Keisuke…' Ryosuke said while they walked to the reception area.

'What is it Aniki?'

'You're still a little too rough on the pedals, please be careful.'

It took Kyosuke and Seisuke a super-human effort not to burst out laughing seeing the look of profound shock on their beloved uncle's face and the complete nonchalance with which their father just went to the front desk to get them checked in. Deep down though, they were all grateful that the legendary White Comet was still very much alive somewhere within the now respectable head of the Arakawa-Takahashi Medical Group and for this reason alone, Keisuke decided not to take it too personally nor point out the fact that, at least in theory, said legendary White Comet was _supposed_ to be sleeping.

A couple of hours after their arrival, Keisuke called Takumi to let him know that they were there. The former tofu delivery boy was surprised to hear that Ryoko had chosen to stay in Maebashi and was startled by the fact that her replacement was none other than Ryosuke himself. It turned out that most of the members of the PIAA-Tanaka team were already in bed, including Akito who apparently was feeling a little feverish.

'Is he okay?' Seisuke asked his uncle looking very worried.

'Yeah,' Keisuke replied with a dismissing gesture, 'it's just nerves. It happens sometimes, doesn't it Aniki?'

'It does,' the doctor replied, 'a good night's sleep and he'll be as good as new.'

'If you say so,' Kyosuke said trying to sound reassured.

'Speaking of sleep,' Keisuke added, 'I think we should go to bed ourselves, we'll need to drive in early if we want to get a good spot at the grandstand. Also, I've checked the program and I want to see the Super GT practice too.'

'For old times' sake?' Ryosuke teased his brother.

'It wasn't _that_ long ago,' Keisuke countered, 'you said it yourself, didn't you?'

The doctor just let out a chuckle before getting up from the table where they had had their dinner and walking away from it not even pausing to see if the other three followed him. Needless to say, they did and soon the two sets of Takahashi brothers were each tucked in their futon in the big, Japanese-style room they were all sharing.

Morning came surprisingly quickly and Seisuke nearly had a heart attack hearing his uncle's louder than normal alarm clock. Thankfully, Ryosuke was fast enough to stop it before it woke the whole city of Okayama up and with the calm gained by age and his many years as doctor, he then proceeded to get up so that he could kick Keisuke awake.

'Ouch!' the ex-racer complained, 'that hurt.'

'I know it did,' Ryosuke replied coolly, 'but since your wife isn't here to wake you up I thought of using the old method. I'm glad to see that it still works.'

'You're too cruel, Aniki,' Keisuke said getting up while he rubbed his leg.

Kyosuke and Seisuke just shared an amused look. Watching the older men's antics for the past twenty four hours and the hilarity which ensued had nearly made them forget that the real reason why they were here was to figure out what was wrong with their best friend. Alas, after eating their breakfast, they were suddenly reminded by their own father's comment:

'I'm sure today will be most enlightening for you two.'

Right at that moment and having just come back from the usual pre-race meeting, Akito was inside the pitbox assigned to the PIAA-Tanaka F3 team listening to what one of his mechanics was telling him regarding several updates they had done to the engine in order to improve the fuel combustion, advising him to be extra careful with it at least for the first of the practice sessions.

'Try keeping it at around seventy percent, okay?'

'I'll do my best,' Akito replied.

'Fujiwara-kun,' Tanaka-san said, 'before you get suited-up, there are a couple of journalists here who'd like a quick word with you, I trust that's okay with you, Fujiwara-san?' he added glancing at Takumi who nodded his agreement after silently checking if his son was up to the task.

'I'm ready when they are,' Akito said.

The young racer followed his team manager out of the box where he saw an anonymous looking middle aged man and a young guy who didn't seem as friendly as his smile tried to be. At any rate, Akito bowed politely while he waited for Tanaka-san to take the initiative which came in the shape of a curt nod.

'Fujiwara-kun,' the middle aged man then said, 'I know you haven't been around for too long but, in your opinion, is there any driver you'd like to take up as your role model for your future career?'

'Er…' Akito hesitated while he tried to understand the question.

'Surely,' the man continued, 'Andrea Guelfi is a good candidate, right?'

'Of course,' Akito finally said, 'Guelfi-san is a great driver but I'm still very far from being like him.'

'But you won your first race,' the younger of the two journalists said.

'That was mostly luck,' Akito admitted. He noticed Tanaka-san's almost fatherly smile which encouraged him to continue, 'I mean, if Guelfi-san's car hadn't broken down, I doubt I would have gone beyond second.'

'Is there any other driver you admire,' the middle aged man said, 'besides Guelfi, that is.'

'Well,' Akito said, 'not really. I think that, for now, I need to concentrate on improving my own skills before I can even think of any of the other drivers. At any rate, I think that everyone who is placed inside one of the single-seaters is worthy of my admiration, regardless of who they drive for. Don't you think?'

Twenty interminably long minutes later, the two journalists seemed to be satisfied with their questions and, after having his picture taken by the younger one, they walked away leaving a mentally exhausted Akito behind.

'You did well,' Tanaka-san said.

'Really?' Akito asked him sounding doubtful, 'I hope I didn't say anything stupid or…'

'No, no,' Tanaka-san reassured him, 'your answers were very well thought out. I think that as long as they write what you said, it'll be fine.'

'What do you mean by that, Tanaka-san?'

'You know journalists,' the team manager said, 'they sometimes twist around the words and in the end what they print is nowhere near what you originally said. But fear not, I'll make sure that doesn't happen.'

'Thank you for that,' Akito said sounding relieved.

'No worries,' Tanaka-san replied, 'now, go and get your racing suit on, the first practice session will start shortly.'

'Sure,' Akito said.

The young man made his way to the team's van, taking his bag from it so that he could go to one of the changing rooms when, just as he was locking the door, he heard a familiar, yet unwelcome voice behind him. Briefly closing his eyes, Akito took a calming breath before he reopened them and turned round.

'So, you're still here,' Hideki Taguchi said smiling nastily.

'Does that disappoint you?' Akito asked trying to sound supremely unconcerned.

'Oh no,' Hideki said sarcastically, 'having newbies around always makes my day, doesn't it Marko?'

The Austrian clearly hadn't fully understood their exchange but that didn't stop him from sneering at Akito in a way which made him want to punch him. Instead, he fought to remain calm and, looking back at Hideki while lifting his bag a little, he forced himself to keep a reasonably civil tone to say:

'If you two excuse me…'

'Be my guest,' Hideki said glaring at him a little, 'since you're so eager to be beaten…'

With that and before Akito could come up with an appropriate retort, the two Team TOM's drivers walked away from him talking to each other in English as if to make sure Akito couldn't understand a word of what they were saying. Again, Akito pondered, whatever they said, if it had anything to do with him, it probably was better that he didn't understand them, for his own peace of mind's sake.

Akito then shook his head a bit and, using his free hand he pinched the bridge of his nose noticing that the nagging headache he had ever since arriving at Okayama was getting worse. He continued his march towards the changing room and that prevented him from seeing that, a few metres from there, a set of positively fuming brothers had just witnessed the entire episode while the other set, the older one, had trouble keeping them from running after the pair formed by Hideki Taguchi and Marko Schultz.

'What the hell was that?' Seisuke hissed.

'That,' his father said, 'is what Akito has to overcome if he wants to make it into professionalism.'

'Why didn't you let us intervene?' Kyosuke wanted to know.

'Because,' Keisuke replied, 'Akito needs to learn to deal with these kind of situations on his own.'

'He didn't fare too badly,' Ryosuke said, 'I'm honestly impressed.'

'Me too,' Keisuke said, 'I thought he'd fly off the handle but it looks like he has inherited a bit of his father's thick skin. Luckily for those two Takumi wasn't anywhere near because thick skin or not, I don't think he would have reacted well seeing his son being bullied by those brats.'

'Too true,' Ryosuke said, 'at any rate,' he continued this time talking to his sons, 'I think that you can now understand a bit of what Akito has to go through. He's definitely not here to make friends, is he?'

'No,' Seisuke admitted feeling his face burn with shame, 'I already knew it was a stupid thing to say.'

'Yes it was,' Keisuke agreed mercilessly.

'Dad,' Kyosuke then said, 'do you think we'll be able to speak to him sometime today?'

'I should think so,' Ryosuke replied, 'but, for now, we need to find our seats. The Super GT practice has already started and none of you want to miss it, do you?'

While the four Takahashi made their way to the grandstand, Seisuke felt his guilt increase to a historically high level and, for the first time, he realised just how tough the professional racing world was and, very slowly, he started understanding the reason why Akito wasn't too eager to discuss anything to do with racing in his free time. Sitting down, he glanced at his older brother and on his face he saw the same look of recognition as if he too had come up with the same conclusion. At any rate, Ryoko was right:

He owed Akito an apology.

Just as the Super GT practice session was coming to an end, Akito was about to put his balaclava on when his father closed in on him and, lowering his tone of voice, he asked him if he was feeling alright.

'Of course I am,' Akito hurried to reply, 'why wouldn't I be?'

'What about…last night?' Takumi asked.

'I'm fine,' Akito replied firmly, 'don't worry.'

With that and before his father could comment on the fact that he was indeed looking a little paler than usual, Akito hurried to don the fireproof balaclava and only accepted his father's help to put on the HANS device, leaving to Takumi the job of attaching the supports which held it to the black and white helmet.

'Here,' Takumi said passing the gloves to his son.

'Thanks,' Akito replied, his voice muffled by the helmet's visor.

A few moments later, he climbed into the car and waited till the mechanics had the warming blankets removed from the tyres. He then made the car roll out of the box and soon, he was out on the pitlane following one of the Avangarde Racing cars, the one driven by Yukio Minamoto.

'He's there!' Seisuke exclaimed pointing at Akito's black and white Dallara.

'Son,' Ryosuke said sounding slightly amused, 'it's not like you haven't seen him racing before.'

'Yes Dad,' Seisuke said, 'but this time is different…this is…'

'F3,' Kyosuke finished for him.

'And we're watching him live,' Seisuke added, glad to see that his older brother was as much in awe as him.

The two older set of brothers let out a chuckle at the same time making the younger set scowl a little. Thankfully, the pitlane opened just then and soon enough they were too busy watching the tiny cars darting past the main straight as they started the first warm up laps. They saw that Akito wasn't pushing it at all.

'Uncle Keisuke,' Seisuke asked, 'is there anything wrong with his car?'

'No,' he replied, 'I'm sure he's just playing it safe. Takumi mentioned to me that they were going to do some work on the engine, Akito's just probably testing its new limits.'

'Also,' Kyosuke added, 'this is the first practice session and as you know they won't go all-out just yet, right Uncle Keisuke?'

'Precisely.'

'Someone down there didn't get _that_ memo,' Ryosuke commented pointing at one of the Team TOM's cars. It was the one driven by Marko Schulz who was going as fast as the car would go overtaking whichever car got in front of him. As it turned out, the car currently in front of him was the red Toda Racing's car belonging to Andrea Guelfi who was about to start the first of his warm up laps.

'He can't be so stupid,' they heard Keisuke say almost as if he were talking to himself.

'I wouldn't bet on that,' Ryosuke said.

Surely enough, Marko used the long straight to overtake the slightly slower Toda Racing car and everybody saw as, very wisely, Andrea just moved out of the way making sure his car stayed clear of the TOM's trajectory. That probably fuelled Marko's ego and that was very bad news indeed for his following victim:

Akito Fujiwara.

_To be continued…_


	35. Chapter Thirty Four

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirty Four_

Everyone sitting at the grandstands watched the red, white and yellow Team TOM's car driving past Andrea Guelfi's single-seater just as the end of the track's main straight and entering the first corner, a nearly ninety degrees right-hand turn. Akito Fujiwara had just cleared it and he was on his way to the first of the circuit's three chicanes when he spotted Marko's car reflected on the tiny rear view mirrors.

With a small smile curving his lips up, Akito felt his foot wanting to increase its pressure on the accelerator pedal and for the briefest of instants, he considered ignoring his mechanic's instructions so that he could show Marko Schulz that while he might be young and technically speaking, a newbie, he certainly wasn't afraid of anyone.

'No,' Akito muttered to himself.

He had to resist that temptation. Tanaka-san trusted him enough to let him drive one of his cars and the mechanics had worked very hard to make the car more reliable and ruining it all because of some stupid bully simply wasn't worth it. With that decided, Akito just concentrated on keeping a steady enough rhythm and it was that which made it possible for Marko to reach him just before the entrance of the chicane.

Once there, Akito drove in wide so that Marko would have all the room he needed to pass him but, to everyone's surprise, the Austrian decided to copy Akito's line and remain unnervingly close behind him, staying put for two whole laps, pressuring Akito almost as if he were trying to get him to drive much faster.

'Dad,' Kyosuke asked, 'what is that guy doing?'

'I have a theory,' was the doctor's predictable reply, 'but I hope I'm wrong.'

'Care to share…'

Keisuke's sentence was interrupted half-way through when they saw the two cars driving along the main straight to enter their fourth practice lap. Three quarters of the way, the Austrian veered to the left as though as he had finally decided to use the outside line to overtake Akito who, very wisely, decided to move to the inside of the track making sure Marko could easily pass him and enter the right-hand corner ahead of him.

They all thought that this is what would happen when, at the very last possible moment, Marko changed his mind and, slowing down, he moved in an attempt to get his car back behind Akito's. The two cars then entered the ninety-degree right-hand corner sticking the cars to its apex so much so that at the turn's exit Akito felt his car moving outwards due to the inertia.

Right then, when he least expected it, Marko decided that he wanted to overtake Akito after all and, just as the two cars were about to clear the corner, the Austrian turned his car in an impossibly narrow inside line which would have put him in a collision course with Akito's car if it wasn't because the younger racer, driven by some sort of subconscious self-preservation instinct, pushed his car towards the outside of the track.

Alas, he wasn't fast enough and just as the two cars finally cleared the corner, Akito felt the right-hand rear tyre of his car driving over Marko's left-hand front one. This made Akito's car temporarily lift up, impacting back onto the tarmac so suddenly that it made Akito lose control of the traction for a split second. Long enough for him to see his car darting out of the track, sliding onto the grass all the way to the safety barrier. There, Akito saw the car stop just a hair away from the too-solid looking wall of tyres.

'Shit…that was close,' he somehow managed to mutter to himself.

'Akito,' he heard his father's voice over the radio, 'are you okay?'

'Yeah,' Akito replied sounding a little shaken up, 'I'm not sure about the car…I…'

'Don't worry about it,' he then heard Tanaka-san say, 'try and get back in here as soon as you can.'

'Yes, sir,' Akito replied.

Soon enough, he saw quite a few of the circuit's marshals surrounding his car and a few moments later he was standing out of it, trying to assess the amount of damage done to the poor thing while one of the marshals guided him to the other side of the safety barrier clearly ignoring Akito's wish to stay with his car.

'Hey kid, are you okay?' the marshal asked him refusing to let go of his arm, 'can you walk on your own?'

'Yes,' Akito replied feeling a little overwhelmed by it all.

'Don't you need a doctor?' the middle aged man insisted.

'No, no,' Akito hurried to reply, 'I'm one hundred percent fine, seriously.'

'Okay,' the guy said, 'stay right here, a scooter should be here shortly. It'll take you back to the paddock.'

'Thanks,' Akito replied and, to his immense relief, the marshal finally let go of his arm.

'No problem,' the guy said giving him a small, fatherly-looking smile which made Akito realise that everyone of the guys there were as old, if not older, than his own father. No wonder they all treated him like a baby…

His thoughts were interrupted by some news coming from another of the marshal posts, the one placed right after the second chicane. The marshals there reported that Marko's Team TOM's had also stopped with a punctured tyre, the one Akito had driven over before being sent off the track. Remembering about the incident made Akito frown with worry.

'Don't worry about it,' one of the oldest looking marshals said, he clearly was in charge of the post and Akito saw that all his subordinates nodded their agreement, including the middle-aged marshal who had helped him.

'But…'

'We saw the whole incident,' the chief said, 'and what that guy did was an illegal manoeuvre which was both stupid and dangerous. If it wasn't because you did your best to move out of the way, he would have probably crashed onto your car so don't feel sorry about him.'

'I don't,' Akito reassured him, 'I'm just worried about my car, my mechanics worked on it for a very long time and I don't want to waste all their efforts.'

'Don't worry about that either,' the chief said, 'I saw the car as it was loaded onto the truck and it looked okay to me.'

'I hope so,' Akito said.

'You know,' another of the marshals said, 'we're all supposed to be impartial when it comes to you guys but you should know that quite a few of us has started to support you.'

'That's right,' the chief said, 'we have high hopes set on you and we're sure you won't let us down.'

'Er…'

'But no pressure, huh?' the middle-aged marshal said winking his left eye at him.

'Yeah,' Akito said trying to smile at him.

Thankfully, the arrival of the promised scooter saved him from having to continue the increasingly embarrassing conversation and a few moments later, he put his helmet back on and climbed on the back of the two-wheeled vehicle and when a handful of minutes later Akito arrived to his team's pitbox, mainly thanks to the weird conversation he'd had with the marshals, he no longer felt so upset about the fact that his practice session had been cut all too short but, seeing the group of people gathered outside the pitbox put his frown back on his face.

'He's here!' Seisuke shouted seeing Akito being driven towards them.

'There's no need to be so loud, Seisuke,' his father said.

'Sorry…'

A couple of moments later, Akito climbed off the scooter and after thanking the circuit's officer, he turned round to face all four Takahashi men. He also saw Tanaka-san and his own father walking towards him.

'Are you alright?' the team manager asked him.

'Yes, I'm fine,' Akito said then, glancing at his father, he asked him, 'is the car back yet?'

'Yes,' Takumi replied, 'we just got it back, the mechanics are repairing it as we speak.'

'Was it damaged?' Akito asked now sounding very anxious.

'Nothing major,' Tanaka-san replied, 'we're changing the front wing which was damaged in the impact as well as the suspensions of the right-side tyres, just to be sure.'

'I'm sorry,' Akito said looking miserable, 'if I had driven faster I would have got away from that guy…'

'…and you would have disobeyed the orders you were given,' Takumi reminded him.

'That's right,' Tanaka-san said, 'you did what we told you to do. It's that Schulz boy who should be worried.'

'I know,' Akito said, 'the marshals told me that he's in big trouble.'

'That's an understatement,' Tanaka-san confirmed, 'for the record, if you ever pull a stunt like that…'

'He won't,' Takumi interrupted him before glancing at his son, 'will you?'

'Never,' Akito promised solemnly.

Tanaka-san nodded his approval and after offering him a smile, he walked back into the pitbox to check on his team's work. Only then, Akito decided that postponing the inevitable was pointless and turned his attention on to his two best friends who, contrary what he expected, didn't seem ready to make fun of him but, rather, they were both looking at him with eyes full of regret as well as something close to admiration.

'Akito…' Kyosuke started.

'Boys,' Keisuke interrupted him, 'I know you two need to talk to him but before that, I think Aniki should give Akito a quick check-up, just to make sure nothing's wrong with him.

'But I'm okay, I…'

'Akito,' Takumi stopped him, 'I think we should let Ryosuke decide that.'

'Let's go to the clinic,' Ryosuke said.

'Clinic?' Akito asked sounding alarmed, 'I'm not…'

'Don't worry,' Ryosuke assured him, 'I'm sure everything is okay.'

'With all due respect,' Akito said, 'what makes you think they'll let you use their facilities?'

'I'm acquainted with their chief medical officer,' was the doctor's nonchalant reply.

'Of course,' Akito said shaking his head unable to believe he hadn't even consider that possibility. Once again, the young racer was in awe at the legendary racer and, judging by the way the other four men were looking at him, he wasn't the only one. Akito believed that Ryosuke Takahashi inspired that sort of reaction in everyone…excepting perhaps his grandfather Bunta but, again, that crazy old man was just too awesome.

While Akito, Ryosuke and Takumi walked to the circuit's clinic, they had the pleasure of seeing the Team TOM's manager dressing Marko Schulz down in front of everyone, including his team mate Hideki Taguchi. Akito made a huge effort not to smirk or even glare at them as he passed by but he knew that showing any animosity would definitely not help his case.

Twenty long minutes later, Akito was finally allowed to get down from the examination table, lying down on a nearby bed instead while Ryosuke and Doctor Nakayama exchanged opinions as well as old medical school memories. It turned out that the two of them had been classmates and Doctor Nakayama seemed to be so happy to see him again after so long that he nearly forgot about Akito and the reason why he'd been brought there. Luckily, Ryosuke wasn't quite so carefree.

'Your body hasn't sustained any damage,' he concluded, 'you have a bit of a temperature though…'

'I'm okay,' Akito insisted.

'I know,' Ryosuke smiled.

'You've said that,' a grinning Doctor Nakayama added, 'quite a few times already.'

'Please,' Akito said to them, 'don't tell my father. In fact, please don't tell anyone, I'm begging you.'

'Akito,' Ryosuke said, 'I'd like you to be honest with us. How are you feeling?'

'I'm fine, I…' he stopped speaking and, letting out a sigh, he started again, 'I've had this headache for a couple of days and I'm feeling a bit run down…I think it's just the start of the flu or something but I'm okay. I swear, I can drive, I'm fit enough and…'

'Okay,' Nakayama interrupted him, 'we know how you feel, trust me we do. But even though we should respect your wishes and not tell anyone, you're still underage and we have to inform your father about the fact that you're sick.'

'I'm not…'

'However,' Ryosuke continued, 'both Doctor Nakayama here and I know well that at this point of your career it's not a good idea to skip a race because you're feeling poorly and besides, there are plenty of racers who race in the same conditions you are now so, what we'll do is give you some paracetamol to get the fever under control but we still want you to promise us that you'll seriously rest whenever you can, okay?'

'Yes, sir,' Akito said sounding slightly downcast.

'Akito,' Ryosuke said, 'your father is understandably worried about your wellbeing, even more so after you collapsed with exhaustion just a few months ago. This is the reason why we need your word that you're not pushing yourself beyond your own limits. If you promise us that, we'll be happy to sign the release papers.'

'I promise,' Akito said looking very serious.

'Okay,' Nakayama said and, leaning down onto his own desk, he applied his stamp and signature to the certificate they'd have to give to the race director, 'I'll go and fetch your father so we can talk to him.'

In the end, Akito felt very happy that both Ryosuke and his own father had been racers for it made it easier for them to understand his need to keep on racing as well as knowing that the start of a flu wasn't enough to stop a racer from carrying on with his job, especially not when said racer was called Akito Fujiwara.

'We have a couple of hours before the next practice session,' Takumi informed him, 'can he rest here?'

'Of course he can,' Nakayama replied.

'Thank you very much,' Takumi said to him then, to his son, he said, 'I'll go and tell Tanaka-san, okay?'

'Dad…'

'Don't worry,' his old man said, 'I won't tell him about the fever, okay?'

'Thanks,' Akito said.

He saw his father and Ryosuke walking out of the room while he lied on the bed. Nakayama followed them too and soon Akito found himself staring at the white ceiling thinking about what had happened back on the track. Analysing the whole incident, he knew that Marko's manoeuvre had been driven by the Austrian's own stupidity and even though it had been very dangerous, he also hoped that other than the public dress down, Marko would not be punished any further. The Austrian guy and his team mate already couldn't stand him, if one of them got any official penalty because of him…

The sound of the door sliding open interrupted his thoughts and glancing at it, he saw Kyosuke and Seisuke.

'Hello there,' Kyosuke said.

'Hey,' Akito replied.

'Can we come in?' Seisuke asked.

'Of course,' Akito said getting up and sitting on the bed. He suddenly realised that he was only wearing his fireproof underpants and that made him wish he had thought of putting his racing suit back on before lying on bed.

'We're not supposed to be here for more than a few moments,' Kyosuke said.

'But we needed to speak to you,' Seisuke finished for him.

'What about?' Akito asked.

'Well…' Seisuke started.

'What are you guys doing here?' it suddenly occurred to Akito.

'Your father got us some visitor passes,' Kyosuke explained, 'Uncle Keisuke gave them to Ryoko as her birthday present and…'

'She's here?' Akito asked, his face lighting up like a Christmas tree.

'No,' Kyosuke replied repressing a smile, 'she wanted us to come instead so that we would see what…well…'

'We're idiots,' Seisuke declared then, seeing his older brother's startled look, he corrected, 'well, I AM an idiot. A big one. I'm very sorry for not understanding what you've been through and…'

'Hey, wait,' Akito stopped him, 'what in the heck are you talking about?'

'Er…'

'We saw you…' Kyosuke explained, 'talking to those two guys from the Team TOM's and…'

'I see,' Akito said finally understanding, 'I don't need your pity or…'

'No!' Seisuke exclaimed, 'we're not…look, I felt upset that you didn't seem to care about our team but after seeing what the professional world is like and how harsh it can be, well, I think I can understand how you're not so keen on talking about racing all the time.'

'That's not it,' Akito said shaking his head.

'What's not what?' Seisuke asked sounding and looking confused.

'Granted,' Akito said, 'the professional world is every bit as harsh as I thought it'd be but that's not the reason why I don't want to talk about the Golden Arrows with you guys.'

'It's not?' both Kyosuke and Seisuke asked at the same time.

'No,' Akito replied and, for some reason, he started smiling.

'Then what is it?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Well,' Akito replied, 'in hindsight it's something a bit stupid really…'

'We're all ears,' Seisuke assured him.

'It's just that…it frustrates me,' Akito finally said then, he elaborated, 'you know, I'm still over two years away of my eighteenth birthday and even though you guys keep telling me it's not such a long time, you also know that in racing two years is an eternity. I'm frustrated that by the time I'll be old enough to join your team, you guys will have a huge advantage over me in terms of experience.'

'What?' Seisuke said, 'Akito,' he glanced around himself, 'you're here, in this world. You're the professional racer here, remember?'

'Yes but…' Akito started

'I think I'm beginning to understand,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'you said you're frustrated and I think that you don't want to talk with us about our team because it would make you even more frustrated and right now you can't afford to waste any energy on something as useless as that. Am I close?'

'You are spot on, as always,' Akito confirmed.

'You know,' Seisuke said, 'you're right, it is a stupid thing…'

'Hey!'

'…however,' Seisuke continued, 'I think I can understand you. I remember how bad it was when Aniki got his driving license knowing that I would have to wait for nearly fifteen months to get mine and I wasn't trying to become a professional racer on top of that.'

'Well, you were trying to get into medical school,' Kyosuke pointed out.

'Yeah,' Seisuke agreed, 'but let's face it: becoming a doctor is a little bit easier than becoming an F1 racer.'

'Allow me to disagree,' Akito said looking very serious, 'at this rate it'll be a miracle if I finish high school…'

All three of them looked at each other and, soon, they all burst out laughing, even Kyosuke, and it was right then when Keisuke stepped in to the room to remind his nephews that Akito was supposed to be resting and that they needed to get out of the room before the doctors would kick them out. Needless to say, the brothers complied immediately after exchanging an encouraging look with their best friend.

After that, the weekend continued the best possible way:

Marko got away with a warning from the Federation who told the Team TOM's manager that they'd be keeping an eye on his drivers for the final four rounds of the season. With that kind of dark mood, it became impossible for the two drivers to qualify anywhere near the first two rows and to Akito that was very good news.

Also, his car was performing so well that he managed to qualify in third place for Saturday's race, ending it in a very commendable second position after stealing it from one of the Swedish drivers. Then, to his profound disbelief, he had also managed to score his first pole ever for Sunday's round and even Andrea Guelfi was gracious enough during the press conference to say that while Akito was indeed young and relatively inexperienced, he was now seeing him as a rival worth of his attention.

If one added to that the fact that thanks to the paracetamol he was feeling heaps better and that his friendship with Kyosuke and Seisuke was now stronger than ever, Akito woke up on Sunday in such high spirits that he knew he would do well in what was going to be his fourth F3 race and, not even the light rain which started falling onto the track half way through the morning seemed to spoil his good mood.

'It's getting heavier,' Seisuke said pointing at the sky.

'It'll be okay,' Kyosuke countered, 'for some reason, I have the feeling Akito doesn't really mind the rain.'

'He's used to it,' Keisuke confirmed, 'after all, he's been training with all sorts of weather, hasn't he?'

'Just like someone else we know,' Ryosuke said.

'Yeah,' Keisuke said, 'his old man was just crazy…'

'I wasn't talking about Takumi,' Ryosuke said giving him a soft smile, 'I was talking about you.'

Keisuke's charged-as-guilty look made his nephews laugh out loud and the poor ex-racer was saved only by the circuit's speakers announcing that the F3 race was about to start and a few moments later, they saw all twenty eight cars driving down the pitlane. Akito was one of the first to get onto the tarmac and a minute and a half later, he stopped his car on the pole position where he waited for the rest of the drivers to arrive.

Exactly fifteen minutes after that, the technical staff cleared the grid and the recognition lap started. The single-seaters travelled around the track with the drivers either warming the tyres up or practicing the starts. Less than a couple of minutes later, they were all back in their positions and then the semaphore lit up.

From their seats at the grandstand, all four Takahashi men watched the green light come on and, at that instant, Akito's black and white car darted out closely followed by Andrea Guelfi's red Toda Racing's Dallara. It became clear from the get-go that the race would be all about this confrontation but when the two cars crossed the line to start the fourth of the twenty one laps, they had left everyone so far behind that it almost looked like they were doing a separate race and that the other twenty six cars had nothing to do with it.

The two cars continued their battle with Andrea increasing the amount of pressure on Akito in a subtle but very constant manner and by the time they reached the middle of the race, everyone could tell that Akito was being pushed just to keep his car on the racing line and the rain wasn't giving up either.

'Akito…'

'Not now, Dad,' Akito said sounding tired.

'Okay,' Takumi said.

Thankfully for Akito, his father knew well that he needed to respect his wishes and would keep the radio silence for the rest of the race if needed. Meanwhile, Akito forced himself to think that while he knew he was getting tired, Andrea's body would also be close to its limits and with that thought, he knew that if he held onto his first position for the next few laps, he would probably win the race. He had just finished forming this thought when, crossing the line for the start of their fourteenth lap, he noticed that Andrea was falling back a little. Akito thought it was just a temporary thing when he saw that his lead on the Italian kept on increasing and three laps later, the two cars were nearly four seconds apart.

'That's odd,' Akito mumbled to himself then, speaking up, he broke the radio silence, 'Dad, is Guelfi having problems?'

'Not that I know of,' Takumi replied.

'Okay,' Akito said.

'Watch out, he likes playing games,' Tanaka-san warned him.

'I know, sort of,' Akito said.

Doing some fast mental calculations, Akito knew that there were four laps left till the end of the race and he also knew that Andrea was good enough to, not only close the four second lead within those four laps but also to overtake him. Akito knew that he had to be extra-careful with the following laps and most especially with the final two or three corners of the track. Akito would bet his helmet that Andrea was going to use the last possible chances to overtake him and thus not give him a chance to pass him again. After all, if they were in a reverse situation, Akito would probably use the same strategy.

With that in mind, Akito steeled his nerves seeing that the rain was now beginning to get lighter. He continued his race and corner after corner he kept checking his rear view mirrors to see if, as he expected, Andrea was getting closer. To his stupor, it didn't seem to be the case and when they finally entered the last lap of the race, not only Andrea wasn't closer but, even worse, the gap between the two cars was wider still.

'Dad…'

'Stay focused,' Takumi ordered him.

Akito did as he was told and for an interminably long one and a half minutes, he had every single one of his braincells focused on the task at hand. He felt his hands numb with cold because of the rain and his feet were beginning to feel very heavy but, in spite of that, he managed to clear ever corner, drive along every straight and navigate around all three chicanes and it was only as they got to the third one of them that Andrea seemed to wake up and started closing the gap. Akito knew that there were only three more corners left, he was also informed by radio that the gap between the two cars was now down to two and a half seconds and, since it was Andrea Guelfi, that simply wasn't a good enough insurance for the race.

For this reason, Akito gathered what little was left of his energy and taking a couple of deep, calming breaths, he increased the pressure on the accelerator pedal praying for all that was holy that the engine, nor anything else for that matter, would give up on him. He then cleared the first of the three corners and went to enter the second. Akito checked the rear view mirror and saw that Andrea's red car was just behind him. He cleared that corner too and knowing that what he was about to do was suicidal, he increased the speed of his F3 yet again noticing that Andrea was doing the exact same thing at the same time.

Both cars, the black and white PIAA-Tanaka and the all red Toda Team cars got to the last corner literally stuck to each other. Akito knew that if he didn't defend himself properly Andrea would overtake him right as they exited the left-hander. Because of this, he moved his car to the middle of the track trying to close the gaps as well as he could. Andrea then moved outwards and, just then, he pushed his car levelling it with Akito's. The younger racer tried his best not to panic seeing that his lead was going to be taken from under his nose when he saw Andrea's car driving away from him.

The shock prevented Akito from noticing two things: one, while the Toda Racing car was indeed driving away from him, it wasn't travelling on a straight enough line. In fact, Andrea Guelfi had slightly miscalculated the trajectory and was going wider than he expected. The second thing Akito failed to notice was that while Andrea was fighting to get his car back onto the ideal racing line, he had just crossed the finish line to claim what was his second F3 win, his first on Japanese soil.

_To be continued…_


	36. Chapter Thirty Five

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirty Five_

With a whirl of contrasting emotions clouding his confounded brain, Akito managed to get the car around the track for one last time and back into the pitlane where a large group of people waited for him. Among them he could see his father, his team manager and the mechanics, his two best friends and the original set of Takahashi brothers there mixed with quite a few journalists, all wanting to be the first to interview the super-rookie but, before that could happen, he saw an already helmet-free Andrea Guelfi walking towards him.

'Hey,' the Italian racer said and, in broken Japanese, he added, 'good race you.'

'Thanks,' was all Akito could reply.

'You, I, talk, yes?' Andrea asked him.

'Sure,' Akito replied.

Then they shook hands and after that Akito found himself surrounded by journalists and only Tanaka-san's proverbial intervention saved him from the tidal wave of questions he found himself attacked with. Thanks to that, he was also able to properly greet his father and all four Takahashi men, noticing with pleasure that even Keisuke Takahashi seemed to be rather proud of his feat. All in all, it was a great day for Akito.

A while later, with the podium ceremony done and the press conference over and while the public at the Okayama Circuit enjoyed the SuperGT race, Akito had just finished taking a shower and getting dressed when he saw Andrea coming into the changing room together with a young-ish looking Japanese guy dressed with the Toda Racing Team's official t-shirt and long trousers.

'Hi,' the guy said, 'my name is Ito, I'm the interpreter for the Toda Racing Team.'

'Nice to meet you,' Akito said bowing a little.

Andrea then said something in what sounded like some furiously fast gibberish, probably Italian, which the interpreter translated as:

'Guelfi-san wants to tell you that he's very impressed with you, he said that it's the first time he's had to resort to using his plan B against a rookie.'

'Plan B?' Akito asked the interpreter.

Andrea then added something in his native language.

'Guelfi-san says that the original idea was to push you into making a mistake but when that failed, he had to try and overtake you using the last corners of the track,' Ito stopped before he added something which obviously came from his own head, 'if it wasn't because he drove through a puddle of water…'

The Italian racer shook his head and said, this time in English:

'No excuses, he's won the race.'

Akito frowned a little but then Ito quickly provided with a translation to that too and that made Akito say:

'I was very lucky, you would have overtaken me and I wouldn't have had room to get back ahead. Your Plan B would have worked just fine. In fact, I thought that your Plan B was what you wanted to do from the start.'

Andrea waited for Ito to translate this and hearing that made him chuckle before saying something else.

'He said he's sorry that he'll be moving to GP2 next year, he thinks it would have been a lot of fun if you had been here from the start. He also says that he hopes that you two will be able to battle in GP2 too soon.'

'GP2?' a stunned Akito asked, he shook his head and, looking very serious, he said, 'it's still way too soon for that.'

Without waiting for Ito's translation, Andrea placed his hand onto Akito's left shoulder and squeezed it a little before he glanced at his team's interpreter who just nodded. The two older men were about to leave the changing room when something made Akito say:

'We still have the final two rounds in Sugo.'

Ito quickly translated that and Andrea smiled at him and said:

'I'll see you there.'

Just at that moment, Takumi walked into the room followed by Kyosuke and Seisuke, both looking worried.

'What's going on?' Takumi asked his son.

'Nothing,' Akito replied.

'Were they bothering you?' Seisuke asked him clearly referring to the two men who had just walked out of the room.

'No,' Akito replied, 'we were just talking about the race.'

'Really?' Kyosuke asked him not sounding too convinced.

'Yes,' Akito said, 'Guelfi-san is an incredibly cool guy, he's not like…well…'

'Okay, we get it,' Takumi said albeit he looked a little relieved, 'are you ready?'

'Ready for what?' Akito asked.

'Dad and Uncle Keisuke are going to take us all to a sushi restaurant,' Kyosuke explained.

'To celebrate your first home victory,' Seisuke added.

'What about Tanaka-san and the rest of the team?' Akito asked glancing at his father.

'They're coming too,' Takumi replied.

'Cool!' Akito exclaimed.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke said trying and failing to repress a patronising smile.

'By the way,' Seisuke added, 'have you called our baby cousin yet?'

'Oh, crap,' Akito said looking suitably guilty and while he hurried to pull his mobile phone out of the pocket of his jeans, he tried to pretend he didn't hear the way his two best friends and even his own father were all laughing at him. He didn't really care, today, Akito Fujiwara was a very happy young man indeed and hearing Ryoko's praise over the phone only made him happier.

Two weeks after the race, Kizuna drove her 350Z up the long drive which led to the Takahashi residence. As usual, the half-American girl left it parked just outside the massive garage where she knew the family kept a small fleet of Mazda cars and, climbing out of her Nissan, she went to the main door which she found open.

'Hello, is anybody home?' she asked from the reception area while she removed her shoes.

'Kizuna,' she heard Ryoko calling her, 'come in, we're in the living room.'

Complying, she donned the pair of slippers Akiko Takahashi had recently bought especially for her and walking down the corridor, she stepped into the living room finding Ryoko and Kyosuke there, watching some TV drama.

'Hey,' Kyosuke said offering her the sort of smile which made her feel weak on her knees, 'take a seat.'

'Where's Seisuke?' she asked while she sat next to him.

'He's on his way,' Kyosuke explained, 'I hope he won't take too long…'

'You've got plenty of time,' Ryoko said without taking her eyes off the screen.

'What time did we say we'd be there?' Kizuna asked Kyosuke.

'Around nine,' he replied, 'those Shomaru Pass guys didn't seem to be too fussy about the exact time of the challenge but I still want to keep the usual standards and, if we don't leave within the next ten minutes…'

He never finished the sentence for, right at that moment, Seisuke showed up at the door looking like he'd been running instead of driving home from wherever he and Kaori had gone to for their usual Saturday date.

'I'll be five minutes, I swear,' he said before disappearing once again.

Kizuna found it cute to see Kyosuke opening and closing his mouth as if he had been getting ready to tell his younger brother off for being so late then, glancing at Ryoko who was still trying to watch TV, she remembered about something she wanted to discuss with the younger girl.

'Listen,' Kizuna said, 'I've been meaning to ask you something.'

'What is it?' Ryoko asked her while keeping her focus on the TV.

'It's Akito's birthday soon, isn't it?' Kizuna asked her.

Predictably, that got Ryoko's attention and, glancing at Kizuna, she said:

'It's less than three weeks away, why?'

'Well,' Kizuna started, feeling encouraged, 'I was thinking of throwing him a surprise party or…'

'No,' Ryoko stopped her looking unusually serious, 'that's not a good idea.'

'Why not?' Kizuna asked her frowning a little.

'Er…'

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke said, intervening in the conversation for the first time, 'Akito never celebrates his birthday.'

'What?' a startled Kizuna asked, 'why not?'

'It's the anniversary of the death of his biological mother,' Ryoko explained.

'He and Takumi-san go to visit her tomb that day,' Kyosuke added.

Kizuna felt like she'd just swollen a huge lump of ice which, funnily enough, was making her hot with shame.

'I'm sorry…I…'

'You didn't know,' Kyosuke finished for her and, patting her hand, he added, 'it's okay.'

'But that's so sad,' Kizuna managed to say, 'I mean, I understand that it's a little inappropriate to have a big celebration but, still, it's his birthday too, he should do something for himself too, don't you think?'

'Oh don't worry,' Ryoko replied, now offering her a smile, 'he does. After he and his father visit the tomb, he usually goes with his family somewhere out for dinner and, this year, Akito has also invited me along.'

'What about presents?' Kizuna asked.

'We usually get him something but he doesn't like us to make a huge fuss with that either,' Kyosuke replied.

'He's just shy,' Ryoko explained with a loving expression on her face.

Kizuna didn't say anything to that but, deep down, she thought it was a pity that the poor kid had never had a proper birthday party in his life. Again, considering how little Akito enjoyed any attention on his own person, he would probably run as fast as he could if anyone did something like throwing him a surprise party and, right then, Kizuna realised just how very stupid the whole idea was and how idiotic she felt right now.

'Hey,' Kyosuke said as if he'd been reading her mind, 'it wasn't a bad idea, it's just that with Akito…'

'It's okay,' Kizuna said, 'I'll just have to think of something nice but not too flashy, right?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'that'd be the perfect present for him.'

'And,' Ryoko added, 'if you need a hand, I'm always happy to go and do some shopping together.'

'Of that,' Kizuna said with a smirk, 'I have absolutely no doubt.'

'Hey…'

Ryoko's retort was cut short by the arrival of Seisuke who had changed out of the formal attire he'd worn for his date with Kaori and was now wearing a pair of jeans and a dark blue Adidas sweatshirt. Kyosuke got up offering his hand to help Kizuna get up too. Not that she needed it, but Kizuna still appreciated the courtesy so, smiling, she took his hand and got up.

'Let's go,' the Golden Arrows leader said.

'Have fun,' Ryoko said and, once again, she had her attention focused on the screen.

'We will,' Seisuke promised.

'Be careful,' the girl added.

'Always,' Kizuna replied.

'And bring another win home,' Ryoko said to finish off.

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied.

Less than five minutes later the two RZ-1s and the 350Z drove into the petrol station where they found Masato and Izawa already waiting for them. Junya, Kazuya and the three Subaru drivers arrived shortly after that followed by Eiji and Kei and Yuta who, as usual, ignored everyone excepting his partner-in-crime Shige and soon the two were engaged in yet another weird conversation.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'we're running a bit behind schedule so we'll be taking the expressway all the way to the Hanazono junction. After that we'll have to take the route 140 to the town of Chichibu. The guy I spoke to said they'll wait for us at the parking area near the Nansekizan Temple. That's our meeting point, okay?'

'Alright,' Kazuya replied on behalf of the rest of the team.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'remember to keep your radios switched on.'

Everyone was climbing into their cars when Junya approached Kyosuke and said:

'Remember what you promised me.'

'I do,' Kyosuke said, 'and don't worry, tonight's downhill race is yours.'

'Good,' Junya said looking satisfied.

With that settled, Kyosuke climbed into his car and waited for everyone to be ready before he drove out of the petrol station leading the other twelve vehicles to the entrance of the Kan'Etsu Expressway. For some reason, it felt like they hadn't done this in a long time and he felt happy to have accepted this challenge.

During the eighty kilometre long ride to the Shomaru Pass, Kyosuke's brain was busy thinking about Akito's F3 career. He knew that, after having achieved two wins and another two podium-finishes in his first four rounds, it would be hard for the younger guy to keep up this more than impressive record but, he also knew that Tanaka-san had to be very careful for Kyosuke was sure that more than one team was already plotting to lure Akito away from the PIAA-Tanaka Racing Team.

Thinking about this made Kyosuke more eager than ever to finish his university course so that he too could get into the professional world he'd seen in the Okayama Circuit. Having observed the engineers and mechanics working on the cars, actively discussing how to improve things with the team manager, listening to the input given by the driver…it was like a dream, a dream Kyosuke wanted to turn into a reality as soon as possible so that, one day, he'd be Akito's chief engineer…

'Leader,' Masato's voice interrupted his thoughts, 'this is Professor, do you copy?'

'Yes Professor, I copy,' Kyosuke said, 'what is it?'

'I might be mistaken,' Masato replied, 'but I think I've just seen a very familiar looking car, keep your…'

Right then Kyosuke saw the dark blue Mitsubishi X-3 belonging to Taro Nakazato.

The guy, clearly wanting to be noticed, first flashed the headlights of his car at Kyosuke, then he levelled his car with the yellow RZ-1.

Kyosuke then saw his mobile phone ringing and using the hands-free device, he pressed it to answer the call.

'Nakazato.'

'Hey,' Taro said, 'I heard you were going to the Shomaru Pass.'

'Who told you that?' Kyosuke asked him keeping a neutral tone of voice.

'It's a small world,' Taro replied.

'It is,' Kyosuke agreed then, skipping any pleasantries, he asked, 'what brings you here?'

'Nothing much,' Taro replied, 'I was a little bored and it's been a while since you guys got some action. I didn't want to miss the chance to see you race at the Shomaru Pass. You don't mind if I tag along, do you?'

'Not really,' Kyosuke replied.

'Cool,' Taro said sounding happy, 'then, with your permission, I'll drive with you guys.'

'It's a free country,' Kyosuke commented seeming rather unconcerned.

'It is,' Taro confirmed.

With that, he closed the call and, predictably enough, the radio filled with chatter. Some of the Arrows were curious to find out about Nakazato's true intentions while a few, namely Junya and Kei, wanted to know if there was a chance they could challenge the leader of the Myogi Devils for a quick race on neutral ground.

'No,' Kyosuke said, 'he's just here to see us race and we've already accepted a challenge, that's enough.'

Ignoring the twin grunts coming from Junya's and Kei's radio sets, Kyosuke kept on driving trying to pay no attention to the Mitsubishi which was now sandwiched between his RZ-1 and the one driven by Seisuke. He finally got to the Hanazono junction and got onto the route 140 covering what was left of the distance to the Nansekizan Temple as fast as he could without breaking the speed limits imposed by the provincial road.

It turned out that the parking area by the temple was also used by the tourists who visited the adjacent park and, for this reason, it was fairly big and equipped with several vending machines. It was by those vending machines that Kyosuke saw what he figured was the team which had issued him the challenge.

He supposed that because, surprisingly enough, more than a street racing team, the dozen cars and the bunch people he could see while he drove into the parking area looked more like a group of friends gathered there just to have some fun. In fact, even from the inside of his own car, he could hear some loud music and even a few people dancing to it. They didn't stop when they saw the fourteen cars stopping next to them, not even when their drivers started climbing out of them.

'Nice party,' Kazuya commented keeping a suitably low tone of voice.

Kyosuke didn't even bother answering, instead, he tried to figure out who was the team's leader.

'Oh!' a tall-ish guy wearing a military green bandana which matched his trousers said, 'you're already here!'

'You must be…'

'Fujikawa Mitsuki,' the guy said, 'and you, of course, are the legendary Takahashi Kyosuke.'

'I don't know about the legendary part,' Kyosuke said feeling a little embarrassed, 'but yes, that's me.'

'Oh, don't be so modest,' Mitsuki said, 'we're honoured you guys are here, aren't we people?'

'YEAH!' a few of them shouted happily before reassuming their partying.

'We're a bit late,' Kyosuke commented, he was beginning to feel a little confused, 'I'm sorry about that.'

'Late?' Mitsuki asked checking his own watch, 'it's not even half past nine, the party's just getting started!'

'Party?'

'Yeah,' Mitsuki replied, 'hey, it's a challenge alright but we're all here to have fun, aren't we?'

'Er…' Kyosuke hesitated, 'I suppose so…'

Just then, the leader of the Shomaru Pass team noticed Taro Nakazato and, widening his already huge smile, he walked towards the Myogi Devils leader and patting him on his shoulder, he laughed and said:

'Hey, long time no see!'

'It's been a while,' Taro admitted, 'I see you guys are as crazy as ever.'

'We do our best,' Mitsuki said looking shameless.

'Er…' Kyosuke hesitated, 'how's…'

'Oh, where are my manners?' Mitsuki exclaimed, 'okay, okay, I can see that you Gunma racers are all way too serious for your own good so, I think we ought to get things organised a little, what do you think?'

'I would appreciate that,' Kyosuke accepted.

'Alright,' Mitsuki said finally getting a bit serious, 'well, to begin with, here at the Shomaru Pass we like having a Relay Race. We'll pick two of our drivers and we'd like for you to pick two of yours. Then, one pair will drive to the other end of the Pass while the first pair stays here. Maybe some of your guys will want to go there since it's where most of the fun will take place. The rest can stay here and party with us.'

'I'm sorry,' Kyosuke said, 'when you say a Relay Race, what do you exactly mean?'

'Easy,' Mitsuki replied, 'we'll toss a coin to decide who, out of the first pair, drives ahead during the downhill stint. I should tell you that there are only two or three spots in which is possible to overtake, also, your guys should be careful with the tarmac, the Pass hasn't been resurfaced for a while so it's a little rugged.'

'Okay,' Kyosuke said.

'As soon as they get to the other end,' Mitsuki continued, 'their team mates can immediately take off to complete the uphill stint. As always, whichever team gets back here first, wins the challenge. Easy, right?'

'Yeah, I think so,' Kyosuke replied.

'Cool,' Mitsuki said his huge smile returning to his reasonably handsome face, 'now, I'm sure you want to do a few recognition passes first but, by all means, do join the party, the more the merrier, right?'

'That's my line,' Kyosuke heard his brother Seisuke muttering under his breath. He was going to glare at him when he saw that Mitsuki was no longer paying attention to them, instead, he just went back to his friends and started dancing with one of the many girls there. Kyosuke shook his head unable to believe what was happening and for a very short moment, his confused brain prevented him from realising that things weren't as easy as Mitsuki Fujikawa had made them seem.

'Don't let him fool you,' Taro said with a low tone of voice.

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Those guys are very good,' Taro replied, 'also, the Relay Race is a lot more dangerous than it looks.'

Kyosuke wanted to ask for more details but Taro just left him standing there, going to greet a few of the members of the Shomaru Team. To Kyosuke's dismay, he noticed that quite a few of his own team mates had also joined the party and only Kizuna, Junya and Kei remained by his side.

'Who's going to take the uphill stint?' Junya asked him.

Kyosuke considered his options and, while originally he had wanted to give Yuta or even one of the three Subaru drivers the chance to take part on the challenge, after hearing Taro's warning he knew that he simply could not be so careless about his choice. For this reason, he briefly glanced at Kizuna before he said:

'I think I'll do it.'

'Great,' Junya said sounding rather pleased.

'You don't mind if I do, do you?' Kyosuke asked Kei.

'Of course not,' Kei replied sounding very serious, 'you're our leader, after all.'

'It's not like I don't trust your skills,' Kyosuke explained, 'it's just that there's something about this…'

'Hey,' Kei interrupted him, 'you don't need to explain yourself. I too have the feeling that there's a lot more to it than these guys are letting through. I don't know why but I think we'll need our best drivers to win this race and, everyone of us here knows that while Junya's our downhill ace, you're the best uphiller we have.'

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'I think we should go and check that Pass.'

A few moments later, Kyosuke was back onboard his RZ-1 and driving down the Route 299 otherwise known as the Shomaru Pass. He was follwed by Junya in his S18 and Kizuna with her 350Z. Behind them, they had Shuji and Tatsuya in their Subaru. Shige had remained with Yuta back at the party with the rest of the team.

'Kyosuke,' he heard Junya over the radio, 'that Fujikawa guy wasn't kidding about the tarmac.'

'No, he wasn't,' Kyosuke agreed.

Even though he wasn't driving anywhere near as fast as the RZ-1's engine could go, Kyosuke had trouble keeping the car on a straight line for more than a few metres before finding either a bump or worse, one of the way too many holes which seemed to populate the road. Also, he noticed that there were a few parts of the Pass which were also covered by sand and even some small rocks. The place was a royal mess.

'You know,' they heard Kizuna say, 'I think I'm going to write to the Saitama Prefecture to remind them that this road exists. I can't believe people use this road to go to Hanno City and back.'

'Well,' Kyosuke said, 'it's a bit of a detour but they can easily get there using the expressway.'

'Yes,' Junya confirmed, 'which is probably the reason why the city council doesn't care about this road.'

Their chat ended just as they got to the part of the road which was, if possible, even narrower and more worn down. There all five drivers needed all their attention just to keep their cars on the road and when ten minutes later they got to the end of it, Kyosuke became suddenly aware of the part of the Relay Race which made it so dangerous. Thinking about it, once Junya would get to the end of the pass, he would have to drive up knowing that he would find, sooner rather than later another incoming car, very likely travelling towards him at a very high speed. If they weren't extremely careful, a frontal collision would be inevitable.

'Oh my god,' Kizuna muttered hearing his explanation.

'Guys,' Kyosuke said trying to ignore her anxious tone of voice, 'we'll need to take this race very seriously.'

'Yeah,' Junya agreed.

'Kyosuke-san,' Shuji said, 'we're going to drive back up now. We'll stop to remove those rocks we saw up there earlier on, okay?'

'Thanks,' Kyosuke said, 'that will definitely help.'

'No problem.'

'Shuji,' Kyosuke added, 'I think that no amount of practice will make it any easier so, tell Fujikawa that we're ready when they are. I'm going to stay down here,' he glanced at Kizuna and added, 'what about you?'

'I'm staying here too,' she said.

'In that case,' Junya said, 'I'll be driving up too.'

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'be careful during the race, alright?'

'I always am,' Junya replied.

Soon, the two Subaru and the Nissan Silvia left Kyosuke and Kizuna alone and only then the girl allowed herself to look as worried as she was.

Since no one could see them, Kyosuke took her in his arms and said:

'I'll be fine, don't worry.'

A while later, during which Kyosuke did his best to prepare his car for the race ahead, they were joined by a few of the Arrows. Masato, Izawa, Kazuya and Kei all drove down with a few of the members of the Shomaru Team while Junya, Seisuke, Eiji, Yuta and the three Subaru drivers stayed uphill with the rest of the locals and the Myogi Devils leader. Kyosuke was already sitting inside his car, trying not to pay attention to the fact that the guy who was supposed to be his rival, some chubby guy in his early twenties, was nowhere near his ride, an old but very robust looking dark red Integra, preferring to continue his chat with his cute girlfriend. Kyosuke decided to concentrate on listening to the radio report he was getting from his brother Seisuke.

It seemed like Mitsuki himself was going to do the downhill stint and Junya had, for some reason, let the guy take the leading position without letting the coin decide. Seisuke clearly disapproved of that but Kyosuke thought that, while a bit unorthodox, what Junya was doing made a lot of sense. To begin with, Mitsuki was a lot more familiar with the Pass and if Junya did his best to follow him all the way to the part of the road which became a steeper downhill, there, he could use one of the two spots where it was possible to overtake. Then, if Junya drove at his best, he would probably get down there ahead of the leader of the Shomaru Team.

Kyosuke's thoughts were interrupted when he saw Kei and Kazuya clearly arguing about something while Masato and Izawa were trying to get them to stop. He only got out of the car when he saw Kizuna glancing at his direction, looking like she was asking him for help.

'What's going on?' he demanded.

'Kei, I'm telling you,' Kazuya said, 'you need to go.'

'Go?' Kyosuke said, 'go where?'

'Nowhere,' Kei said glaring at Kazuya.

'Kyosuke…'

'Shut the fuck up,' Kei hissed.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said firmly, 'what in the heck is wrong with you two?'

'His mother's been taken to the hospital...' Kazuya started but then, a furious Kei punched him hard, sending the poor guy flying onto the ground. Kyosuke, and everyone else, including some of the Shomaru Team members frowned seeing that and, before he could ask Kei to explain himself, the guy lost it and, grabbing Kazuya by the front of his shirt, he shouted at him:

'She's not my fucking mother!'

_To be continued…_


	37. Chapter Thirty Six

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirty Six_

Unaware of the drama ensuing at the other end of the Pass, Junya was getting ready to start the Relay Race while the rest of the Arrows admired Mitsuki Fujikawa's ride, the newly released Mitsubishi GTO Zero. The compact sportscar was painted in gleaming black had an FF layout, with a one point eight litre engine, it was Mitsubishi's highly anticipated answer to the latest model of the evergreen Honda Civic as well as a clear homage to the old GTO model from the seventies and the infamous World War II fighter.

'That's a truly gorgeous car,' Seisuke heard Taro Nakazato say.

'You're only saying that because it's a Mitsubishi,' Seisuke countered.

'True,' Taro confessed, 'but you've got to admit it, it is quite good-looking.'

'Is it quick?' Yuta asked surprising everyone with the unusual display of interest in earthen matters.

'Quick enough,' Taro replied, 'the stock version makes one hundred and seventy eight horse power.'

'That one doesn't look very stock to me,' Eiji commented.

The Arrows all nodded.

Mitsuki's Zero had obviously been modified, Seisuke suspected, to better suit the road's more than challenging conditions and now its chassis, slightly lower than that of the Civic, had been reinforced and one could spot stabilizer bars placed inside the car. In addition to that, the brand new, super-wide tyres that, together with the rear spoiler, ensured a strong down force which helped with the grip the driver would need to make it to the other side of the Pass.

Throwing a nervous glance at Junya's light blue S18, Seisuke could not help but to notice the poignant differences between both cars' set-ups and he found himself hoping that Junya's decision to give the leading position up to Mitsuki would somehow pay off. Otherwise, Kyosuke's race would be an uphill one, in both the actual as well as figurative sense of the word.

'Start your engines!' one of the girls from the Shomaru Team shouted.

Positioning herself right next to the Mitsubishi driven by the team's leader, she lifted her arm and started counting down:

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

What happened next surprised everyone of the Arrows present. Mitsuki, instead of using up his lead to take off and leave Junya behind, just drove away travelling at a very moderate speed, almost as if he was waiting for Junya to catch up with him. Noticing that Taro didn't seem to be surprised in the slightest, Seisuke went to ask him about it when the guy said:

'He's doing it again…'

'What do you mean?' Eiji asked.

'My team raced them a few months ago,' Taro explained, 'and we lost miserably.'

'What?' Seisuke exclaimed.

'How?' Eiji added.

'That Fujikawa,' Taro said, 'he seems like a fun loving entirely carefree guy, doesn't he?' a few of the Arrows nodded, 'well, that's what makes people underestimate him but, you know, he's really the master here and I would bet my X-3 that Shimano will be forced to overtake him even before they get to the downhill part of the Pass.'

'Why would Fujikawa do that?' Shuji asked.

'My theory?' Taro asked, 'I think he's an adrenaline junkie. He gets a kick out of making things dangerous for himself and for others and the bit he enjoys the most from this Relay Race is when he remains behind at the end of the Pass and finds the incoming car as it starts the uphill stint.'

'You mean,' Eiji said, 'that he's going to let Junya win the downhill, _on purpose_?'

'Probably,' Taro explained.

'Why?' a startled Seisuke asked.

'Because he wants to play chicken with your brother,' was Taro's alarming reply, 'just like he did with Kugo.'

'What happened to him?' Eiji asked even though they all suspected the answer to that question.

'His R36 ended up down the cliff,' Taro explained, 'we were lucky that it wasn't too deep and he only got a few scratches.'

'And the car?' Seisuke forced himself to ask.

'Totalled,' Taro replied shaking his head.

Hearing that sent a shiver down the spine of all six of the Arrows present there and even before he registered it, Seisuke found himself running back to his car, hoping he could give some warning to both Junya and Kyosuke about what was about to happen. Alas, when he got in the car and tried to hail his older brother on their private frequency all he got as answer was silence and that made his own heartbeat sound even louder. Switching back to the general frequency, he then heard Junya's slightly shaky voice shouting:

'IS THERE ANYONE LISTENING?'

'I'm here,' Seisuke hurried to say.

'About fucking time,' Junya said sounding most unhappy.

'What's wrong?' Seisuke asked.

'Everything,' Junya complained, 'this guy's nuts. Ever since we started the race he's been trying to make me pass him and he simply refuses to go faster, not that we can go much faster but, we're going at less than sixty now.'

'Don't fall for that,' Seisuke said.

'No kidding,' Junya sarcastically replied, 'that would royally screw my strategy.'

'No,' Seisuke said, 'listen, that guy wants you to overtake him so that he can play chicken with Aniki later.'

'What?'

'Look,' Seisuke replied, 'I don't have time to explain now, I need to talk to Aniki, please keep the radio on.'

'Will do,' Junya said.

Still inside his car, Seisuke pulled his mobile phone out of the slot in the RZ-1 where he usually kept it and pressing the speedial to call Kyosuke, he put the phone to his ear and waited to see if his older brother answered the call. Thankfully, he did after just a couple of rings.

'Seisuke…'

'Aniki,' he interrupted him, 'look, I need to…'

'I'm sorry Seisuke,' Kyosuke stopped him, 'we're having a bit of a situation here…'

'A situation? What kind of situation?' Seisuke asked but he realised by the silence at the other side of the line that he was talking to himself. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, finding it hard to believe that his older brother had just hung up on him. He only recovered when, coming from the radio, he heard Junya making an ironic remark about it.

'Don't tell me,' the guy said, 'Kizuna's slapped someone again…'

Seisuke didn't even grace him with an answer, instead he tried to imagine of what was happening at the other side of the Pass praying for all that holy that Junya was wrong and Kizuna didn't have anything to do with it. Then, knowing that it was the only thing he could do now, he decided to send an email to his brother, hoping that whatever the situation, he would still have the time to read it before the race. Typing furiously fast, he pressed the button to send the message and then, he leant against the headrest and let out a frustrated sigh as quietly as possible while he raked his brain trying to see if there was anything else he could do.

Meanwhile at the other side of the Pass Kyosuke did hear the bleep which warned him that he had a new message but, ignoring that, he focused his attention on Kei and Masato. Seeing that there were too many unwanted spectators and that even Kazuya's powerful self-restrain had its limits, he had led the two of them down a footpath and now they found themselves in the middle of a small clearing surrounded by tall trees with only the moon providing some light. Taking a deep, hopefully calming breath, he said:

'Alright, I don't have a lot of time but I need to know what happened back there.'

'Kyosuke-san…'

'Kei,' he stopped him, 'you're very lucky Kazuya's not the violent sort and that he's been generous enough to give you the chance to explain to me the reason why you attacked him. Now, I have less than ten minutes so start talking now.'

'Kei,' Masato intervened with a soothing tone of voice, 'what did you mean when you said that your mother isn't your mother, I…'

'She isn't my mother,' Kei finally said, he took a couple of steps back and went to lean against one of the trees. There he too took a deep breath and almost as though as he was talking to himself, he started speaking, 'about eighteen months ago I was working on a paper when my computer stopped working properly. Since I needed to hand it in the next morning I went to the studio my father has at home so that I could use his computer instead. He doesn't have a password so I just switched it on and I was about to start working when I saw that among the recently opened documents there was one labelled "Keiichiro".'

'Keiichiro?' Masato asked him, 'but your name is…'

'Kei,' he answered, 'it's just Kei. But that file was called "Keiichiro" so curiosity got the best of me so I opened it to see what it was. At first I didn't even understand what it was…but then I read it more carefully and I realised that it was some sort of contract between my father and some woman called Uchiyama Nami.'

He stopped speaking as if he had a hard time saying whatever he was going to say next.

'Kei…' Kyosuke started but he stopped when he heard the pained tone in which the other guy said:

'That woman was my mother. She sold me to my father for one hundred million yen and a new identity.'

'What?' Masato gasped.

'Can you believe that?' Kei asked laughing bitterly, 'one hundred million yen…that's all I'm worth.'

'Kei,' Kyosuke tried again, this time he went to place his hand on top of Kei's left shoulder but the guy moved away and started pacing around, 'I'm sorry,' Kyosuke continued, 'you don't need to…'

'I do,' Kei stopped him, 'it's just like you said that day in Fukuoka, I need to stop being so self-centered and rely more on people. It's just that…'

'I'm sorry too mate,' Masato said, 'I never knew you'd gone through so much…'

Kei stopped pacing and, looking at Masato, he asked:

'Do you remember those three days I skipped school?'

'Yeah,' Masato replied.

'I was waiting for him to come back home from his business trip so that I could talk to him,' Kei said, 'he first tried to deny knowing anything about it but when I showed him a printout of the contract he freaked out. He even tried to turn it around on me telling me that I had violated his privacy. Can you believe that?' he didn't wait for an answer and continued, 'in the end, he ended up telling me the truth: it turns out that Uchiyama Nami had been one of his many lovers, only that she got pregnant and knowing that my father would never leave his wife but that he was rather desperate for an heir, she saw it as a perfect chance to make money out of him.'

'That's the reason why you're estranged with your parents, isn't it?' Kyosuke asked.

'No,' Kei replied sounding even more bitter, 'I am so retarded that I was even prepared to forgive him for what he'd done.'

'Then, what happened?' Kyosuke asked.

'My father refused to help me find her,' Kei replied.

'You wanted to find her?' Masato asked him.

'Yeah,' Kei replied, 'I still do. I know it's stupid but I do want to know where she is, that is the reason why I'm saving as much money as I can, so that I can pay a private investigator. When he found out my father threatened me with disinheriting me. The bastard thought that I would care more about his money than about finding the woman who gave birth to me. Instead of waiting for him to do that, I just packed up and left their house,' he then glanced at Masato and said, 'I'm sorry for not telling you about this.'

'It's okay,' Masato replied, 'I think I can understand the reason why you didn't say anything.'

'Yes,' Kei said, 'but still, you offered me a place to stay, I should have…'

'Kei,' Masato stopped him, 'I didn't need an explanation then and I don't need one now. I'm just glad you're telling us this now. To be honest, I don't know how you've been able to cope keeping all of this to yourself. I'm not sure if there's anything we can do to help you but if there is, we're here, always, remember that.'

'That's more or less what Kyosuke-san said that day in Fukuoka,' Kei confessed feeling a little embarrassed.

'And it's still valid now,' Kyosuke said, he then glanced quickly at his watch.

'You should get going,' Kei said.

'No, not yet,' Kyosuke replied, 'look, I understand that your father made a huge mistake and that he probably has a lot to answer for but, right now, I think that we should focus on who, I think, is an innocent bystander here. The woman who raised you might not be your biological mother but she still was there while you needed her, wasn't she?'

'Yeah, but…'

'Since she's at the hospital, I'm pretty sure she wants to see you,' Kyosuke said, 'I'm probably stepping out of line saying this but I think that you should set aside whatever issues you have with your father and should go and see her. While you're at it, you could also talk to your father.'

'Kyosuke-san…'

'You never listened to his whole side of the story, did you?' Kyosuke asked him as gently as possible.

'No,' Kei admitted.

'You've got nothing else left to lose,' Masato observed, 'I mean, maybe Kyosuke-san is right and if you talk to your father, maybe there will be something in his explanation which will make things a little less wrong.'

'But…'

'Where's she now?' Masato asked him.

'Tokyo, she's at the Todai University Hospital,' Kei replied.

'Alright,' Masato said, 'let's go there now.'

'Masato…'

'I'll be there,' the guy continued, 'if anything goes wrong, I'll be there and we'll deal with it together, okay?'

Kyosuke observed the scene in silence for a few painfully long seconds then, very slowly, Kei nodded.

'Alright,' he said, he then glanced at Kyosuke and asked him, 'is it okay that we leave in the middle of a challenge? I mean…'

'Of course it's alright,' Kyosuke said then, smiling a little he added, 'if I can get away with it, so can you.'

In spite of himself and of the dramatic situation he found himself in, Kei still managed to return the smile while Masato allowed himself a soft chuckle. Kyosuke then glanced at the watch again and realised that, if his timing was right, Junya had just reached the mid-point of the race and he really ought to start getting ready for his own stint.

'We need to go back there now,' he said, 'you two head straight towards your cars. I'll try to explain the situation to Kizuna, Kazuya and Izawa the best way I can but don't worry, I won't tell them any of what…'

'It's okay if you do,' Kei said, 'I think after the trouble I've caused they more than deserve a proper explanation. Also, can you please tell Kazuya that I will apologise to him properly as soon as I can?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke said.

'Thanks,' Kei replied.

'You're welcome,' Kyosuke said then, as an afterthought, he added, 'if things don't sort themselves out with your father, we'll work on finding an alternative solution together, okay?'

Kei just nodded to that, looking like he was, once again, getting as emotional as he'd been during their last chat that summer morning in Fukuoka while he and the Golden Arrows leader worked together to fix his car.

A few moments later, the three of them stepped back into the small space at the bottom of the Shomaru Pass and while Kyosuke made his way to his car, he saw Kizuna crouching next to Kazuya while she applied something onto his bruised cheek. Izawa was the first to notice him and the guy was going to speak when he also saw Kei and Masato making a beeline towards their own cars, both parked not too far away.

'Guys,' he said, 'Kei and Masato are going to visit Kei's mother at the hospital, I will need to speak to you about what happened as soon as we finish this challenge but until then, leave those two alone, okay?'

'I hope he punched me for a damn good reason,' Kazuya said wincing with pain.

'It is a very good reason,' Kyosuke replied, 'trust me, it is.'

'If you say so,' Kazuya said sounding only half-convinced.

'Kyosuke,' Kizuna said, 'shouldn't you be getting ready?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'll be back as soon as possible.'

He wanted to kiss her right then, not only because of what he felt for her but also because after the emotional stress he'd been put through, he really needed to calm down a little, especially considering the sort of race he was about to start. Alas, there were just too many people watching so, instead, he just stared at her for a few seconds.

'Be careful,' Kizuna said.

'That's Ryoko's line,' Kyosuke pointed out trying to make a joke.

'If it works for Akito…' Kizuna said trying to smile.

'…it'll work for me too,' Kyosuke finished for her.

Before Kazuya or even Izawa had the time to speak, Kyosuke just went to his car, climbing into it and noticing that, at long last, his rival had deigned to get into his dark red Impreza so that he could wait for his leader to finish the downhill stint. Once inside the RZ-1, Kyosuke hailed his brother so that he could figure out what had happened with Junya while he was away from the car. He didn't like what he heard at all.

'Didn't you read my message?' Seisuke asked him.

'Message?' Kyosuke replied sounding a little confused.

'Oh, never mind,' Seisuke said and without needing a further prompt, the future doctor proceeded to explain everything he had learned from the Myogi Devils leader. Including the fact that Mitsuki was totally bonkers who would probably love doing rope-less bungee jumping or, even better, watching someone else having a go.

'I already suspected that much,' Kyosuke said after hearing the explanation.

'So, what do we do now?' Seisuke asked him.

'Nothing,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'm going to trust Junya and his ability to handle the situation.'

'And what if he fails?' Seisuke asked.

'It takes two to tango,' Kyosuke replied, 'and since I really don't want to end down a cliff...'

'I see,' Seisuke said, 'well, you know what you're doing so, just be careful, okay?'

'I think I'm beginning to understand Akito,' Kyosuke muttered just loud enough to be heard.

'What do you mean?' Seisuke asked.

'Forget it,' Kyosuke ordered, 'I'm going to check on Junya now, I'll see you soon.'

'I hope so,' was Seisuke's slightly pessimistic remark.

Kyosuke ignored that and, switching back to the general frequency, he tried to see if Junya could speak.

'No offence,' the guy said, 'but I'm a little busy now, we'll have a chat about that _situation_ of yours later.'

Junya knew that he was being a little more than rude to his leader but, right at that moment he needed all the concentration he could get. While the start of the race had been a frustratingly slow affair, the instant they had reached the narrower part of the road which was a much steeper downhill with an even more worn down tarmac, Mitsuki had decided to speed up just enough for Junya to be in considerable trouble.

He was still pretty confused about what Mitsuki had tried doing earlier, braking and accelerating, moving side to side and essentially trying to force Junya to overtake him at every possible spot to the point that in one occasion the S18 had even levelled with the Zero and Junya had to slam the brakes in order to remain behind Mitsuki. Now though, it looked like Mitsuki had forgotten all about it and, instead, it looked like he was trying to get them killed. Swallowing hard, Junya saw that the speedometer registered one hundred and ten kilometres an hour and the extreme vibrations which came from the chassis of his poor Nissan were making very nervous.

'Calm down,' he whispered to himself.

Taking the chance that they were driving over one of the rare even sectors of the road, he tried to catch his breath when he saw that the braking lights of the Zero had come on. Swearing viciously Junya moved his foot from the accelerator and went to brake too, his brain realising one split second too late that he had just done exactly what Mitsuki wanted him to do. In fact, by braking in that specific part of the road, Junya saw that all his rival needed to do to stay behind was to pull over to the side and let inertia take care of the rest.

'Shit,' Junya said.

'What…'

Junya ignored the rest of what Kyosuke was saying and instead he was forced to watch his car driving past the Zero and before he could do anything useful to prevent it, he saw the Mitsubishi's cobra-like headlights reflected on his rear view mirror and unless he did something, he knew that they would stay there all the way to the bottom of the Pass.

Raking his brain to figure out what he could do, Junya wondered if he could just emulate what Mitsuki had done to him. Glancing at the road ahead, he saw that the atrocious state of the tarmac there would make it nearly impossible. He tried to calculate how far they were from the end of the road when, as if he had just had an epiphany, he remembered that not too far ahead there was a small area by the left side of the road. He didn't know if Mitsuki would fall for it but he had to try.

Just then, it occurred to Junya that the situation was so ironically comic that, if it hadn't been because it definitely wasn't funny, he would have laughed out loud.

For the first time in his life, he was fighting to _lose_ a race.

Pushing that unsettling thought to the back of his brain, Junya focused all of his attention back on the road which looked even narrower. He drove around one of the many corners doing his best to avoid the part covered by the sand, dodging one of the smaller rocks Shuji and Tatsuya had obviously not seen on their way back up. He then covered another straight and started getting ready for what he was about to do.

Behind him, he saw that Mitsuki was just keeping up with him, looking like he wasn't even breaking a sweat. Junya cleared yet another corner and there, just a few metres ahead, he saw the small bay by the side of the road. He knew he would only have one chance to get back behind Mitsuki so, steeling himself against the steering wheel, Junya increased the pressure on the accelerator and just as they reached that area, he swiftly moved his foot to the brake, slamming it just as Mitsuki had done earlier on. He then held his breath.

Taken by surprise, Mitsuki watched the S18 increase its speed only to brake, using the inertia and speed to move to the side of the road, opening up the space hoping that the Zero would be forced to drive past it.

'No, no,' Mitsuki smiled.

Using the engine to increase the GTO's braking power, Mitsuki managed to slow down enough to nearly come to a full stop just as Junya ran out of space. He only needed to wait for Junya to either crash against the railway or move back onto the road. Predictably enough, the S18 had to veer to the right, rejoin the battered tarmac and fractionally increase its speed in order to keep on going.

'That's better,' Mitsuki said.

In the S18 Junya was still shaking up. He had _felt _the ancient guardrail grazing the side of his car as he just about managed to make it back onto the road with the daunting feeling that he had failed. Somehow, Mitsuki had managed to stay behind him and with just a few more corners left and absolutely no more spots in which to overtake, Junya knew that he was about to win this stint and that he was going to leave Kyosuke at the mercy of the madman they were racing against.

'Kyosuke,' Junya said with an uncharacteristic subdued tone of voice.

'What happened?' the leader asked betraying just a hint of apprehension.

'I'm sorry,' Junya replied, 'I don't think there's much else I can do.'

'I see,' Kyosuke said as calmly as possible, 'don't worry, just make sure you make it down here safely.'

Junya didn't say anything to that also because he had just noticed that had lost sight of Mitsuki's Zero.

In a temporary moment of insanity, he played with the idea of just braking altogether so that whenever Mitsuki reached him would crash his car against the S18. Recovering his wits just in time, he silently apologised to his car for even considering that possibility. Instead, he just focused on the last two turns and, when a few seconds later he finally saw Kyosuke's RZ-1, while the black Mitsubishi still was nowhere to be seen. He never had the time to wonder what had happened to it because, just as he drove into the area where everyone waited for him, he saw Kyosuke taking off. Junya just stopped his car and paying no attention to any of his team mates, he did a three-point-turn and once again, he started driving up the Pass.

Hopefully he would at least see what would happen next.

_To be continued…_


	38. Chapter Thirty Seven

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirty Seven_

Kyosuke cleared the third corner of the Pass, his heart beating faster as he got closer to the moment when he would find the opponent driving downhill. He was frankly surprised that he still hadn't seen Mitsuki's car but somehow he fought the urge to accelerate knowing that it was crucial he drove as slowly as he could. Instead, he kept his eyes peeled trying to spot the incoming headlights and, straining his ears, he managed to hear the sound of not one but two engines, one of which seemed to come from somewhere behind him.

Confused, he glanced at the rear view mirror for an instant but, seeing nothing, he shook his head once and decided to dismiss it. It probably was the mountain's echo or maybe it was just his over stressed mind playing tricks on him, either way, he never had time to think about that because, as he returned his attention to the road in front of him, he saw the set of headlights he had been expecting coming from the corner right ahead and, an instant later, he saw the black Mitsubishi Zero. Acting according to his own plan, Kyosuke veered towards the very solid looking wall, sticking to it as closely as he could, slowing down a bit.

Then, to his horror, the black Mitsubishi also drove towards the wall.

For the longest second of his entire life, Kyosuke watched the other car getting closer and closer. He could almost picture the frontal collision between the two cars when, all of a sudden, Mitsuki Fujikawa pulled over to the left looking like he was going to drive straight onto the guardrail. The sudden manoeuvre put the tyres and the whole car under an enormous amount of stress and Kyosuke simply could not phantom how his rival managed to straighten up his car in time to drive it in between the guardrail and the RZ-1 without crashing against either. To their fortune, the only parts of the cars which touched were the wing mirrors and even that was inconsequential.

After that, it was all over.

In the RZ-1, Kyosuke's whole body was tensed up, his entire brain focused on trying to keep his eyes open, his throat constricted by the fear of seeing the Mitsubishi passing so incredibly close to him and only when he finally got to the corner Mitsuki had just come from, Kyosuke allowed himself to start breathing again. With his oxygen deprived brain making feel slightly dizzy, it took Kyosuke a few instants before he could start thinking straight again during which he realised that he had cleared the corner entirely on autopilot.

Kyosuke shook his head once again and doing his best to focus on the task at hand, he was about to open the throttle so that he could, at long last, start driving uphill when coming from somewhere immediately behind him, he heard first the screeching sound of tyres and then the unmistakable sound of a car crashing followed by the breakage of the headlight covers. Right then, Kyosuke slammed the brakes of his RZ-1. One second later, he was out of the car and running down the road trying to figure out what had just happened.

No amount of thinking prepared him for what he saw next.

There, just around the corner and in front of his incredulous eyes, Kyosuke saw Mitsuki's Zero nearly stuck onto the stone wall, incapable of moving forward blocked by what looked like Junya's light blue Silvia. Kyosuke would have laughed at the impossibility of the situation if it wasn't because, just then, he saw the man himself climbing out of the car, followed by Mitsuki who had to use the right-hand side back door of his car in order to get out.

'Ah,' the guy said sounding inexplicably happy, 'what a mess…'

Kyosuke realised what he was talking about when, taking a couple of steps closer to the two cars, he saw that the S18 had a large part of the front bumper smashed against the guardrail and that its left tyre was hanging so dangerously close to the edge of the road that it made Kyosuke's heart skip a couple of beats.

'Oh shit,' Junya complained while he too assessed the damage.

'Hey,' Mitsuki said, 'are you alright?'

'Of course I'm not bloody alright, you fucking…'

'That's enough,' Kyosuke finally reacted and he moved closer yet to the other two racers positioning himself in between them.

'But…'

'I said,' Kyosuke interrupted Junya, this time glaring at him, 'that it's enough.'

'Takahashi,' a totally oblivious Mitsuki said, 'I've got to give it to you, that was a superb strategy.'

'What?' Kyosuke asked, jerking his head to look at the guy.

'You know,' Mitsuki explained, 'I never thought a team could use a two-car-attack tactic but hey, it works!'

'Er…'

'I think we'll adopt it for our next challenge,' Mitsuki continued, 'however, we do have a problem now.'

'Fujikawa…'

'You see,' the guy carried on, 'you probably won the challenge the moment you managed to pass me, however, Sorimachi and his Integra are an unbeatable combination on this pass, He might have caught up with you and, who knows, he could have even overtaken you before the end of the race.'

'As if,' Junya sneered, 'there's no way that would happen.'

'Oh really?' Mitsuki asked and his expression made Kyosuke wish he could punch Junya, 'how interesting...'

'Look…' Kyosuke tried.

'I think I have an idea,' Mitsuki interrupted and, right then, Kyosuke knew that it was too late, 'why don't we just race each other? I'm not as good as Sorimachi going uphill but I'll do my best to keep you entertained.'

Somehow, to Kyosuke, that felt more a threat than a promise and, once again, Kyosuke felt like punching Junya. Unfortunately, that simply wasn't an option and neither was refusing what it very obviously was a challenge to a new race, if nothing else his street racer pride forbade it so, a tad reluctantly, he nodded and said:

'Alright, let's race but, before that, I need to make sure that his car is still driveable.'

'Of course,' Mitsuki said, 'while you do that, I'll call Sorimachi to let him know about the change of plans.'

'Are we going to keep on racing from here?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Do you have a problem with that?' Mitsuki challenged.

'No, I don't,' Kyosuke replied.

'Brilliant,' the guy said and, pointing at the S18, he added, 'do you need a hand with that?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'd appreciate it if you could back your car up a bit so that we can try and move it away from the guardrail.'

'Sure,' Mitsuki replied.

Kyosuke waited until Mitsuki got back behind the wheel of his car and, as soon as he pulled the Zero away from the S18, Kyosuke started walking around the Nissan using the small torch his phone's camera came equipped with so that he could carefully inspect every inch of the car. Thankfully, the engine was still running, the tyres were okay and other than the huge dent on the front bumper and the broken headlight covers, the rest of the chassis seemed to be alright.

'Kyosuke...' Junya started.

'I don't want to hear it,' Kyosuke countered, 'I don't know what you're doing here and I honestly don't care. Now thanks to you and your big mouth I have a race I would have rather avoided so, what I'd like you to do is for you to drive back to the bottom of the pass and tell Kizuna, Kazuya and Izawa what's happened here then, in ten minutes from now, I want all four of you to start driving home, is that understood?'

'Kyosuke…'

'Just a yes or a no, Junya,' Kyosuke said tiredly.

'Yeah,' Junya said then, he quickly added, 'I'm sorry, I…'

'It's too late to be sorry,' Kyosuke said mercilessly, 'besides, it's your car you should be apologising to.'

With that and leaving a mortified looking Junya behind, Kyosuke started walking back to his car noticing that, somehow, while he'd been checking the S18, Mitsuki had managed to turn the Zero around and was now facing uphill, ready to start the race. Kyosuke also noticed that the driver's side window was rolled down.

'Hey,' Mitsuki called him, 'do you need a lift back to your car?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'it's just around the corner.'

'Alright,' Mitsuki said, 'we'll start the race in like this. I'll wait for a minute or so, just to give you the time to get back in your car and then we'll just start driving from here. Does that sound reasonable to you?'

Kyosuke wanted to say that absolutely nothing of what had happened that evening was reasonable.

'Yes, that's fine,' he replied nevertheless.

'Good,' Mitsuki said and once again, a huge smile appeared on his face.

Kyosuke started walking up the road and, just then, he had the small satisfaction of hearing the S18 as Junya started the difficult three-point-turn which would put him facing downhill. While he walked, Kyosuke tried not to think about the possible reasons why Junya had done something as stupidly dangerous as to follow him, deciding to focus his energies on the battle which awaited him. His gut feeling told him that Mitsuki still had quite a few aces up his sleeve and that this race was going to be anything but entertaining.

A few instants later, he found the RZ-1 right where he'd left it and, climbing into it, he fastened the racing seatbelt and checked that everything was the way it was supposed to be. He didn't have the time to check the wing mirror when, he saw a couple of headlights coming from around the corner. Placing instinctively his hands onto the steering wheel, his foot pressed the clutch and, entering the first gear, Kyosuke took off too driving up the hill as fast as the twin-turbo rotary engine could go.

The race had just started.

Further down below, Kizuna, Kazuya and Izawa watched as the S18 re-emerged from the last corner of the Pass. All three of them let out a surprised gasp when, as the car drove under one of the very few streetlights, they saw the broken headlight and the dent the front bumper now featured. Kazuya was the first to get next to his cousin's car and, the instant Junya rolled the window down, he started firing one question after another.

'Junya,' Kizuna intervened, 'where's Kyosuke?'

'What happened to your car?' Kazuya asked for a second time.

'He's racing Fujikawa,' Junya replied grumpily.

'Why?' Kizuna wanted to know.

'Just because,' Junya replied, clearly refusing to give more details about it.

'What happened to your car?' Kazuya insisted.

'I crashed it,' Junya replied.

'No, seriously?' Kazuya asked with a sarcastic smile then, getting very serious, 'did that Fujikawa do that?'

'What happened to your face?' Junya countered.

'Answer my question first,' Kazuya demanded.

'And why is Kyosuke racing Fujikawa-san?' Kizuna insisted, 'wasn't he supposed to race that guy over there?'

'Look,' an impatient Junya said, 'Kyosuke asked me to tell you to start driving back up in ten minutes from now. I think everything else will have to wait. As for me, I'm going to head home.'

With that and before they could protest, he rolled the window back up and, driving through the small group of people, he drove down what little was left of the Route 299 taking the long way around towards the Kan'Etsu Expressway. The other three stared at the car as it drove away and then at each other, looking at a loss about what to do.

'Kazuya,' Kizuna finally said, 'no offence but your cousin is a bit of an asshole.'

'None taken,' Kazuya replied, 'that's a matter of fact.'

'So,' Izawa intervened nervously, 'what do we do now?'

'We should do what Kyosuke wants us to do,' Kizuna said, 'let's wait ten minutes and then we'll drive up.'

'Alright,' Kazuya said, 'you know, I can't wait to get home.'

'Neither can I,' Kizuna said while Izawa just nodded.

Meanwhile this happened, Kyosuke found that somehow he wasn't having anywhere near as much trouble keeping Mitsuki behind as he thought he would. They had covered nearly a quarter of the distance but the guy had not even attempted to overtake him. Again, Kyosuke knew that there only were a couple of places in which it was roomy enough to try and overtake. One of those spots was not too far from there and Kyosuke was sure that Mitsuki would use it to pass him.

Knowing that losing his cool would mean losing the race, Kyosuke fought to stay calm. Instead, he focused on driving around the following corners, a left-hander followed by a tight right-hander, careful to avoid the holes and bumps which were scattered all over the road. He was even quick enough to avoid one of the patches of sand and by the time he cleared those two corners, he had the satisfaction of temporarily losing sight of his rival.

That somehow gave him a breather which allowed him to do some quick thinking.

Kyosuke was sure that Mitsuki would use the first of the two spots to overtake him. He also was certain that the only way he could avoid that was if he managed to keep the gap he had now, hopefully increasing it a little just to be sure. That meant that he had to drive a tad faster but thankfully, the RZ-1's engine still had a lot to give. For this reason, Kyosuke pressed the accelerator a little bit more, keeping an eye on the car's reaction. Thanks to his efforts, he was able to clear the successive five corners driving all by himself and when he finally made it to the first of the two overtaking places, he had the immense satisfaction of safely driving past it.

Stage one of his plan was complete.

He had just finished this thought when, coming from the corner he'd just cleared, he saw the Zero's headlights. Trying not to panic, he reminded himself that there still was a long way to go before they reached the second of the spots and that he had plenty of time to rebuild the gap he needed so he had nothing to fear. Yet.

The two cars reached the mid-point of the race. They had just entered a slightly less bumpy stretch of tarmac when, out of the blue, Kyosuke saw Mitsuki getting incredibly close to his car. Instinctively he tried to see if there was any way for Mitsuki to pass him there but, seeing nothing, he tried to stay calm and in the middle of the road. Just then, Mitsuki veered to the right, towards the mountain which, in that specific sector wasn't covered by a man-made wall. Kyosuke then noticed a rather large rock lying somewhere in between the road and the mountain's steep slope and just he moved to dodge it, Kyosuke knew he'd made a mistake.

Mitsuki used up that chance to drive around the right side of the rock, using part of the mountain's slope as if it were part of the road and even before Kyosuke had the time to close the virtual door he'd just opened, he watched the Zero tilting dangerously and then, driving back down onto the road, this time ahead of him.

'Shit,' Kyosuke muttered his foot flying onto the brake.

With the bitter feeling of seeing the Mitsubishi's taillights right ahead of him, Kyosuke knew that he now had to do an entirely different race. This time, he simply could not afford letting Mitsuki drive away from him. For this reason, he forgot all about playing it safe and for the first time that evening, he decided to be reckless and it was that which allowed him to keep up with Mitsuki all the way up to the flatter side of the road. Kyosuke winced quite a few times feeling squeaky noises coming from his RZ-1. He knew that after this race he would probably have to replace the suspensions as well as the tyres and that he would have to treat the whole car to a full check up, to make sure that nothing had become dislodged due to the strong vibrations.

For now, he had other more pressing matters to attend to.

Now that the steeper part of the hill was over and the road was slightly wider and a lot less damaged, Kyosuke saw that the gap between the two cars decreased to the point that after clearing the corner before the second and final overtaking spot, the distance between the Zero and the RZ-1 had disappeared. They were now so close that if by any chance Mitsuki decided to brake, Kyosuke would just crash against him.

Doing his best to ignore that, he followed the Zero for a few more metres before he saw it: ahead of them and on the left hand side of the Pass there was a much smaller lane and, right where it joined the main road, there was a space wide enough for a car. Kyosuke was about to aim for that when he saw Mitsuki moving to the left effectively closing the door to the RZ-1. Kyosuke felt his eyes darting from there to the small space left by the Zero on the right and even before he could consciously think about it, he moved the steering wheel veering towards the mountain and in one swift and highly skilled manoeuvre, Kyosuke first levelled his RZ-1 with the GTO Zero and not giving his rival time to react, he got his car ahead of his rival's.

Only then, he remembered he had to breathe.

Covering the rest of the distance to the finish line was relatively easy also because right after he'd been overtaken, Mitsuki slowed down so much that by the time they reached the goal, Kyosuke had a full four second advantage over him. Kyosuke didn't care, setting modesty aside, he knew that he had more than deserved this win and, just as he stopped the RZ-1, which quickly became surrounded by his team mates, Kyosuke spend a moment patting the steering wheel, silently thanking his car for all the hard work.

'Aniki!' he heard Seisuke shouting through the window.

Slowly and with slightly shaky hands, Kyosuke released the clasp of his racing seatbelt and, hoping his legs would be strong enough to hold him up, he opened the door and at long last, he got out of his car quickly becoming engulfed in his younger brother's embrace. With his face hidden, he even allowed himself to smile a little.

'What a race!' Mitsuki exclaimed sounding indecently happy.

Kyosuke gently got rid of Seisuke's arms and, looking at the guy he'd just beaten, he nodded and said:

'It was…interesting.'

Mitsuki let out a soft chuckle and, offering him his hand, he said:

'I'm glad you and I raced, I haven't felt so high in a very long time.'

'Thanks, I think,' Kyosuke said.

'I have a question,' Taro Nakazato intervened, 'how come did you end up doing both stints?'

'Yeah,' Seisuke added, 'what happened to the Relay Race?'

'Just a change of plans,' Mitsuki explained vaguely, 'but a most welcome one. To be honest, I kind of feel like doing it again!'

'What?' Kyosuke asked sounding a little dismayed.

'Just kidding,' Mitsuki replied though he didn't sound entirely convincing, 'for now, let's just shake hands.'

Kyosuke did and, taking Mitsuki's hand in his, the two men shook hands and Kyosuke took the chance to look into his rival's face. The guy didn't seem upset in the slightest, if anything, he looked even happier than he'd done when the Golden Arrows had first showed up, almost as if he'd been looking forward to finding someone good enough to beat him on his home turf.

'People,' he then shouted while he walked towards the members of his own team, 'let's celebrate!'

Just at that moment, Kyosuke saw the first few cars coming from the bottom of the pass and was happy to see that among them, there were Izawa's Vera, Kazuya's Civic and, most importantly, Kizuna's Nissan 350Z. Junya's S18 was nowhere to be seen but, the way Kyosuke felt, he was almost grateful he wouldn't have to deal with the older guy any time soon.

'Aniki,' Seisuke whispered, 'are you going to tell us what's been happening this evening?'

'Not now,' Kyosuke replied pointing Taro with a slight gesture of his head, 'let's first get back home.'

'Alright,' Seisuke said.

Just then, Taro walked towards the two brothers and said:

'Takahashi, while we're here, I'd like to talk to you about our gathering in Halloween.'

'Where are is it going to be?' Kyosuke asked.

'Well, that's up to you,' Taro replied.

'What do you mean?'

'We all know you guys never accept challenges in Mt Akagi,' Taro said, 'but I wonder if you'd be prepared to make an exception. After all, this isn't technically a challenge, it's just like a Halloween party among friends.'

'You want us to be the hosts?' Kyosuke asked.

'If at all possible, yes,' Taro replied.

Kyosuke glanced quickly at his younger brother then, before the rest of the gang could become too interested in their conversation, Kyosuke decided that it wasn't such a bad idea and, nodding once, he said:

'Alright, I guess that we could make it happen.'

'Great!' Taro exclaimed looking very happy, 'I'll let everyone know.'

'I'd appreciate that,' Kyosuke replied.

'One more thing,' Taro said, 'how did you manage to beat Fujikawa?'

'I have no idea,' was Kyosuke's cryptic reply.

With that, he left the Myogi Devils leader and went to join the rest of his team.

Seisuke looked at Taro and, shrugging his shoulders, he smiled at him and said:

'Forgive him, he's always like that.'

'I know,' Taro said, 'it's part of his charm.'

Somehow, Kyosuke managed to convince everyone to start moving and, soon enough, the ten remaining members of the Golden Arrows together with Taro Nakazato were all driving back into the Gunma Prefecture. The Arrows all left the expressway the instant they reached Maebashi while Taro kept on driving back to his hometown by the Mt Myogi and only a few minutes later they were all driving into their usual meeting place, the large parking at the bottom of Mt Akagi's pass where they saw two very familiar looking cars.

'Welcome home!' Masato exclaimed seeing Kyosuke getting out of his car.

'What are you doing here?' Kyosuke asked him while he looked at Kei, 'I thought you were in Tokyo?'

'We were,' Kei said, 'we just came back.'

'And we thought you'd probably come here after the race,' Masato said.

'We won, right?' Kei asked.

'Wait a minute,' Kazuya said, 'don't you have a bit of explaining to do?'

Both Kei and Masato looked a bit confused for a bit.

'Kyosuke-san,' Kei said, 'I thought you had explained everything already?'

'No, he hasn't,' Seisuke said, 'and we'd appreciate it if we could be let in the whole mystery.'

Kazuya rubbed his bruised cheek and added, 'I still owe you a punch, you know?'

'Yeah,' Kei said, 'I'm sorry about that.'

'Argh!' Kizuna grunted, 'someone please start talking, I simply can't stand this suspense anymore!'

At long last, Kei gave a skimmed version of his not-so-recent discovery regarding his family's history which ended with what had happened when he and Masato had met with Kei's parents at the hospital. There, after a long and well overdue chat, father and son had reached some sort of agreement which involved Kei moving back to the family's house.

'You were right,' Kei said looking at Kyosuke, 'after listening to his side of the story I think I understand the reason why he didn't want me to look for my biological mother. He was afraid that I'd just want to leave and live with her and that would have broken my parent's hearts. Also, I too now think it's not such a good idea because…well, it's a little embarrassing.'

'Go on,' Masato encouraged him, 'you've come this far, you might as well tell them everything.'

Kei glanced at his friend and, for some reason, they saw him blushing a little.

'Well,' he started, 'it seems like Uchiyama Nami was just an alias my biological mother used because…well…she…her family...' he stopped talking and, lowering his tone of voice to just above a whisper, he finally confessed, 'they were somehow involved with the yakuza.'

'What?' Eiji exclaimed.

'Yakuza?' Kazuya said, his eyes widened by the shock.

'Yeah,' Masato confirmed.

'Wow,' Seisuke gasped trying very hard not to laugh.

'Allow me to get this straight,' Eiji said, 'your father is a member of the Japanese parliament and your biological mother is or was a member of a yakuza family?' seeing that Kei just nodded to that looking very embarrassed, Eiji bowed at him making an unnecessary flourish and, using an overly dramatic tone of voice, he said, 'I'm your humble servant, master.'

'Oh shut up,' Kei said looking like he was ready to punch him.

'So,' Kyosuke said trying to steer the conversation back to a more appropriate serious tone, 'what's going to happen next? I mean, are you going to be moving to Tokyo?'

'Oh no,' Kei replied, 'my father's got a house there but our main family home is here in Maebashi.'

'What about your apartment?' Masato asked him.

'The lease expires at the end of the year,' Kei explained, 'and my father said that I can take as much time as I need. He's being really cool about this, but my…well, it looks like my mother got sick because of my moving out so I think I'll just pack the few things I have and move back home sometime next week.'

'What about your part-time job?' Yuta asked him.

'I want to keep doing it,' Kei replied, 'it's a nice feeling making your own money.'

'I still can't believe you declined his offer to buy you a new car,' Masato said.

'I don't want him to buy me anything,' Kei said, 'I know he can more than afford it but I want to take things slow with them. Besides, what's wrong with my car? It might be old but I like it and even Kyosuke-san said it was a really good ride.'

'It is,' Kyosuke said, 'and you're right, there's nothing wrong with old cars.'

'That's right,' Seisuke said, 'I, for one, would give an arm and a leg to be allowed to drive our father's FC.'

'That'll never happen,' Kazuya teased him.

'I know,' Seisuke replied pouting with disappointment.

'I have a question,' Kei said glancing around himself, 'what happened to Junya?'

'That's a good question,' Kazuya replied and, staring at Kyosuke, he added, 'how did he damage his car?'

Ignoring the surprised gasps coming from some of the Arrows, Kyosuke proceeded to them what had happened back at the Shomaru Pass.

'So,' Kyosuke concluded, 'instead of driving up like I told him to, he just went home, correct?'

'Yeah,' Kazuya replied, 'sometimes I'm ashamed to say we're related at all.'

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'what are you going to do about him?'

'Nothing,' Kyosuke said, 'I think that damaging his precious S18 is a bad enough punishment for him.'

'But…'

'Seisuke,' Kyosuke said, 'let's just forget about it. Right now, there's something else I need to discuss with you guys. I hope you're all free this Halloween.'

'We should be,' Kazuya said, 'why?'

'Because,' Kyosuke replied, 'we're going to be hosting the last gathering before the winter break with the Nagano Alliance and the Myogi Devils here in Mt Akagi.'

_To be continued…_


	39. Chapter Thirty Eight

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirty Eight_

On the afternoon of October 31st and as they did every Sunday, Kyosuke and Seisuke were at the Takahashi Motorsports Centre working on their cars. With winter just around the corner and since the roads were beginning to get a little icy, especially during the wee hours of the morning both brothers preferred for their not-so-legal training sessions up Mt Akagi, they had decided to start preparing their cars for the cold season, checking that every single component would be ready for when snow would cover the mountain passes.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said screwing the last bolt on one of his RZ-1's winter tyres, 'with this, we're done.'

'Yes,' Seisuke replied contemplating the two Mazda with the satisfaction of a well done job, 'we just need to give them a wash.'

'That's right,' Kyosuke said noticing that the two cars were indeed a little dirty, 'why don't we…'

'There you are!'

Kyosuke and Seisuke turned round to see their best friend Akito stepping onto the garage by the pitlane the two brothers always used as their workshop. The younger guy was dressed very casually with a pair of old jeans and a dark green jumper and his slightly messy bangs made it look like he'd been running all over the place while looking for them.

'If it isn't Mr Rookie of the Year,' Seisuke teased him.

'Don't call me that,' Akito begged him.

'But that's what you are,' Seisuke pointed out, 'and I'm not surprised they gave you the award.'

'That's right,' Kyosuke added and, using his gloved right hand, he started counting, 'in the six rounds you entered, you won three times, did two poles and managed another two podium finishes _and_ you ended the championship in fourth place. Honestly, I don't know what you would have achieved if you had raced the whole season.'

'That's easy Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'he would have been champion, that's for sure.'

'Guys, come on…'

'Don't be modest Akito,' Kyosuke said, 'what you did was amazing, it's little wonder you got so many offers.'

'Only three,' Akito countered, 'and one of them was because Guelfi-san recommended me as his replacement.'

'And you don't think that's remarkable?' Seisuke asked, 'he's the one who won the championship and you said it yourself that he was the best driver this season. Getting him to recommend you to his own team is pretty awesome.'

'Yeah, well…'

'Have you decided where you're going to race next year?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Yes,' Akito replied, 'that's what I was coming to tell you. Dad and I just came back from signing with PIAA-Tanaka. Toda Racing was offering me a good package but I owe Tanaka-san a lot, he's the one who gave me the chance to start racing in F3 so I wouldn't feel right racing for another team next year.'

'That's understandable,' Kyosuke commented.

'Also,' Akito said pulling something from the back pocket of his jeans, 'I got this in the mail yesterday.'

Both Kyosuke and Seisuke stared at the Grade A FIA License with Akito's name and picture on it.

'It's the permanent one, isn't it?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Yes,' Akito replied looking relieved, 'with this I can now race in F3 and even GP2.'

'Daydreaming much?' Seisuke teased him.

'No, no,' Akito said shaking his head twice, 'GP2 is impossible now. I'm just happy that I won't have the extra pressure of having to apply for a temporary license before every event. It's been a burden on Tanaka-san so I'm glad he no longer has to bother with these kind of things. We can now take it easy.'

'Speaking of taking it easy,' Kyosuke said, 'aren't you supposed to be on holidays?'

'I am,' Akito replied, 'as of today, I've got an entire month off. Unfortunately Mum has decided that I'll be spending most of it catching up on homework. She said that now that both F3 and the Karting championships are over, I desperately need to get back on track with school work and all of that.'

'She's not wrong,' Kyosuke said, 'your marks were quite appalling last semester.'

'How do you know that?' Akito asked looking rather embarrassed.

'Our baby cousin told us,' Seisuke replied enjoying himself, 'but don't worry, it'll be our secret.'

'Yeah, right,' Akito said pouting then, as if it had just occurred to him, he added, 'hey, tonight's Halloween…'

'I'm glad you're here to keep us up to date with current events,' Seisuke teased him.

'Funny,' Akito said sarcastically and, ignoring him, he glanced at Kyosuke and asked, 'do you guys have any plans?'

'We kind of do,' he replied, looking like he was reluctant to tell him about it.

'What are you guys doing?' Akito asked.

'We've organised some sort of party with the Nagano Alliance and the Myogi Devils,' Seisuke explained.

'Where?' Akito asked.

'Mt Akagi,' the two brothers replied at the same time.

'Oh,' Akito gasped then, he looked a little hopeful and said, 'can I come along?'

Seisuke and Kyosuke exchanged a surprised glance before they looked back at Akito.

'What happened to the whole "I-don't-want-to-know-about-street-racing"?' Seisuke asked him.

'Well,' Akito said smiling sheepishly, 'I _am _on holidays and it's been hell not being able to go to the gatherings.'

'Won't you get in trouble?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Not really,' Akito replied, 'Seisuke said it'd be some sort of party, it's not like there will be active street racing happening, is there?'

'Well,' Kyosuke replied, 'I don't think so, Nakazato did say that there wouldn't be any official races.'

'In that case,' Akito said, 'if you guys don't mind, I'd love to join you.'

'Aniki?' Seisuke said and, this time, he too looked hopeful.

'Alright,' Kyosuke finally accepted, 'we're going to go there after dinner. You were going to come with us anyway, am I right?'

'Of course,' Akito replied, 'Ryoko practically demanded that I came to your place for dinner tonight.'

'And you don't want to piss our baby cousin off,' Seisuke said with a smirk.

'Hey,' Akito said returning the smirk, 'I'm not _that_ suicidal.'

A few hours later and after having enjoyed a beautiful home cooked dinner courtesy of Akiko and Kyoko, the two brothers climbed in their newly washed RZ-1s with Akito riding with Kyosuke while Ryoko travelled with her cousin Seisuke. The girl had been fairly surprised when her boyfriend had asked her to come along but decided not to say anything to him.

'Don't tell him this,' she told Seisuke while the two fastened their seatbelt, 'but I kind of miss this stuff.'

'What do you mean?' the future doctor asked.

'The gatherings,' she replied, 'sometimes they're fun.'

'Ah,' he sighed, 'if only Kaori thought like that…'

'Give it up,' Ryoko said, 'you know your girlfriend will never be into cars.'

'I know,' Seisuke replied sadly, 'trust me, I know.'

Ryoko was going to add something else but right then, both rotary engines came to life and soon after that Seisuke pressed the button to turn the car's radio on. The two of them heard Akito's voice complimenting the beautiful sound made by Kyosuke's RZ-1 newly tuned engine and that made them smile.

'He's such a car freak,' Ryoko whispered, a resigned but loving expression appearing on her face.

'We prefer the term petrol-head,' Seisuke replied using the same hushed tone.

Soon enough both cars drove towards the part of Maebashi where Kizuna lived. Predictably enough, the girl was already in her dark grey 350Z and thanks to that they didn't even need to stop, making it to the bottom of Mt Akagi nearly half an hour before the agreed time. Because of this, the parking are was still deserted, illuminated only by the light coming from the moon and the vending machines that were there.

'Hey,' Kizuna said noticing Akito and Ryoko there, 'long time no see!'

'What are you talking about?' Ryoko said, 'we saw each other on Friday.'

'We did,' Kizuna admitted, 'but I haven't seen our little champion for nearly a month.'

'Can you please not call me little?' Akito complained pouting at her.

'I will when you grow taller than I am,' Kizuna said offering him a sweet-looking smile.

'That'll be soon then,' Akito countered.

'It's okay baby,' Ryoko said passing her arm around her boyfriend's, 'you're already taller than I am.'

'That's not such a huge accomplishment,' Seisuke teased her.

He was saved from his cousin's wrath by the timely arrival of the three Subaru which entered the parking area followed by Yuta's green S17. It looked like their Ufoboy had also been working on his car too for its massive black rear spoiler was gone, replaced by a much smaller one painted the same colour as the car which made the car look a lot classier. Kyosuke noticed that Shuji, Tatsuya and Shigeru had already replaced the tyres on their Subaru and now all three cars mounted the winter-spec ones.

As expected, the newcomers were surprised to see Akito and Ryoko there and soon both Shuji and Tatsuya went to speak with the young racer so that he could tell them about his experience in F3 while Shige and Yuta got a dreamy expression on their faces the moment they set their eyes on Ryoko. Seisuke found it hilarious when Ryoko noticed for she became very red and then proceeded to literally hide from their sight by staying behind Akito who remained blissfully unaware of the whole episode.

At five minutes to nine, the rest of the Golden Arrows arrived coming in pairs, Masato and Izawa in their Vera led the way to Kei's EVO X and Eiji's NSX RR. Kazuya's gleaming red Civic preceded Junya's recently repaired light blue Nissan S18. They all parked their cars and went to join their team mates when, finally noticing Akito, Junya glared at him and said:

'What are you doing in here?'

'Junya, don't start,' Kyosuke warned him, 'I invited him so if you have a problem with that, take it on me.'

'I don't have a problem with that,' Junya assured him, 'but maybe the Federation will have.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Seisuke asked him.

'Nothing,' Junya replied, 'I'm just saying…'

'As far as I know,' Akito finally intervened, 'this is a party and attending a party is not against any of the FIA regulations. But thank you for your concern Junya-san.'

With that and leaving a startled group of people behind, Akito just offered his hand to Ryoko and the two of them walked away from the group, heading towards a nearby vending machine so that they could get something to drink. Kyosuke and Seisuke observed him both sharing the same thought: in his brief time in F3 their best friend had definitely grown up and he was now more than capable of dealing with bullies without losing his cool. Somehow, that made them feel a little lonely, a bit like a father after realising that his kid no longer needed him.

Shortly after the Golden Arrows had gathered, the first few members of the Nagano Alliance and the Myogi devils started arriving and, within twenty minutes, the whole parking area was full of cars belonging to all three teams. Some of them had turned their stereos on and some funky music was heard coming up from the speakers. There were people walking around each other's cars, admiring the work everyone put on their rides, exchanging tips and listening to the stories some of the older racers told to impress the younger ones.

'This is fun,' Kizuna said to Kyosuke.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke agreed, 'I wish we could always be like this, you know, just a bunch of friends having fun.'

'Nah,' Kazuya intervened, 'that'd be boring…'

'Boring?' Kizuna asked, 'why?'

'What's life without some drama?' Eiji asked them.

'A happy life?' Kyosuke ventured.

The leaders of the Myogi Devils and the Nagano chose that moment to join them, preventing anyone from coming up with an appropriate way to counter Kyosuke's words.

'Takahashi,' Taro said talking to Kyosuke, 'some of our guys would like to start doing some runs, if that's okay with you.'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied, 'go ahead.'

'Cool,' Yasuo Hirota said, 'I'm hoping you guys will want to join us too.'

'We probably will,' Kyosuke said.

'Fabulous,' Yasuo replied.

A few minutes to ten, a rather large number of cars started driving up Mt Akagi's pass and soon after that the level of noise in the parking area decreased so much that it was possible to start hearing the sound of engines as they revved up, the shifting of gears and the numerous turbos coming into play. They could also hear fresh winter tyres screeching their way up the mountain and, just as it was bound to happen, one by one every member of the Golden Arrows started getting the bug. Predictably, Junya was the first to leave quickly followed by Kei.

'I'm going up too,' Kazuya announced.

In the end, the only ones left were the two Takahashi brothers together with Kizuna, Akito and Ryoko.

'Guys, you guys should go too,' Akito said, 'Ryoko and I will just stay here.'

'I have a better idea,' Kyosuke said, 'why don't you come up with me?'

'What about Ryoko?' Akito asked him.

'She can come with me,' Kizuna suggested, 'you trust me, right?'

'In theory,' Akito replied.

'Why, thank you,' Kizuna said feigning eternal gratitude before adding, 'I was actually asking her.'

'Ah,' Akito said looking a little embarrassed, he then glanced at his girlfriend and said, 'are you up for it?'

'Yeah,' Ryoko replied, 'why not? If I can survive Seisuke's driving, I'm sure I'll be okay with hers.'

'Hey!' Seisuke protested, 'I heard that, you know?'

'I know you did,' Ryoko said showing him her tongue while she followed Kizuna to her Nissan.

'So immature,' Seisuke commented shaking his head and making his way to his own car.

'Let's go,' Kyosuke said to Akito.

A few moments later, the yellow RZ-1 led the three cars up the road just as the white Honda Civic belonging to the Nagano Alliance leader concluded its descent of the Mt Akagi pass, followed by his team mate Jin Matsushita in his black Impreza GT and a couple of the Myogi Devils. The cars drove back into the car park ready to turn round and start driving uphill once again. Knowing they'd be in the way unless they sped things up a little, Kyosuke decided to start pushing it.

'Nice,' Akito said while they cleared a corner at a very high speed.

'I'm glad you think so,' Kyosuke replied, his voice sounding like he was smiling.

They had only covered half the distance when, coming towards them, they saw the three electric blue Subaru driven by Shuji, Tatsuya and Shigeru. The three of them were engaged in a highly synchronised downhill drift so beautifully performed that it made Kyosuke wish he could just stop to watch. Unfortunately, there were a number of cars behind the RZ-1 so, instead, he just drove on making it to the top a short while later. There, they found quite a few cars, including those of Junya, Kei and Yuta. Kazuya and Eiji had just started their first downhill run.

'Whoa,' Akito said, 'I don't think I've seen this bit of road so full before.'

'Neither have I,' Kyosuke said.

After driving so fast to get up there, they now had to travel at walking speed in order not to crash with any of the cars which were busy either turning round or trying to find a spot to park so that they could wait for the road to become emptier. Kyosuke decided that he would do that too and, parking his RZ-1 next to Yuta's S17, he and Akito climbed out of the car. Seisuke opted for turning round and they watched him driving past, disappearing around the first corner driving as quickly as he could. Kyosuke noticed then the longing look on Akito's face.

'You'd want to have a go too, don't you?' he asked him gently.

'Of course,' Akito said with a sigh.

'Why don't you?' Yuta asked him.

'Because he doesn't have his license yet,' Junya replied with a patronising smile.

'Ah,' Yuta said, 'that's right. I'm sorry I asked.'

'It's okay,' Akito replied trying to fight the urge to glare at Junya.

'Why don't you have a go anyway?' Kei asked him all of a sudden, 'I mean, it's Halloween, the police are busy keeping an eye on the kids wandering around the city.'

Akito allowed himself to look hopeful for just a brief moment but it was enough for Kyosuke to see just how much his best friend was dying to get behind the wheel of a car. Any car.

'I have an idea,' he said, 'why don't you take my car back to the base?'

'What?' an utterly startled Akito asked, 'you're kidding, right?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'm serious.'

'Okay,' Akito said with a worried frown, 'who are you and what have you done to my best friend?'

'Akito,' Kyosuke said, 'you've had a very tough year, I think you deserve to have a little bit of fun.'

'Yeah,' the young racer said, 'because it'll be so much fun when my father finds out and kills me.'

'He won't find out,' Kyosuke assured him, 'and I can ride with you if you want.'

'You should say yes,' Kei said, 'I have the feeling that this is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of offer.'

Akito looked at him and then back at Kyosuke while he tried to ignore the intense staring coming from Junya.

'Okay,' he finally said, 'I'll be very careful, I promise.'

'I know you will be,' Kyosuke said.

With this and before either could change their minds, Kyosuke and Akito walked back towards the yellow RZ-1 and, before they climbed into it, Akito asked in a low tone of voice:

'You're sure about this, right? Like one hundred percent sure.'

'I wouldn't say one hundred percent,' Kyosuke admitted quietly, 'I'd say ninety-nine point nine percent.'

'Fair enough,' Akito said.

Kyosuke slid onto the passenger seat of his own car while Akito sat behind the steering wheel, spending a few moments trying to adjust the bucket seat to suit his smaller build and, after making sure everything was set the way he felt most comfortable, he fastened his seatbelt and looked at Kyosuke one last time.

'I'm definitely doing this, aren't I?' Akito asked him.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied sounding remarkably firm when, in reality, he was starting to feel a little uneasy.

He blamed it partially on the fact that he wasn't used to seeing things from the passenger's perspective in his own car and on the fact that his inner-voice kept telling him that it was very irresponsible letting Akito drive his car. Not that he didn't trust the his best friend's ability with a car but, knowing that Akito's father didn't approve of this made him feel a bit like he was betraying the confidence of the man he respected the most after his own father and uncle. He was about to tell Akito about this when the younger guy started the engine. It was too late to stop him so Kyosuke decided just then that, since his twentieth birthday was just over two months away and that from that day onwards he'd be an adult, this would be the last foolish thing he would allow himself so, telling his own inner-voice to shut up he got ready to enjoy the thrill of having an F3 racer driving his car.

'Alright,' Akito said entering the first gear, 'here we go.'

By the time the yellow RZ-1 was ready to rejoin the road, rumours that Kyosuke Takahashi was letting an F3 racer drive his car had begun spreading around most of the racers there and quite a few of them stopped their runs waiting to see them driving past. Thanks to this, Akito found that the first straight of Mt Akagi's downhill was practically empty. Feeling slightly more at ease, Kyosuke watched Akito perking up a bit on his seat and, just then, he witnessed first-hand the moment when the kid stopped being a sixteen year old boy and started being a serious racer. Enthralled by the sight, Kyosuke watched Akito's quick but precise movements while he drove around the first corner of the pass, clearly testing his own limits as well as those of the car.

'Do you like it?' Kyosuke asked him.

'I'd be crazy if I didn't,' Akito replied.

Even his voice sounded different, Kyosuke noted.

The Golden Arrows leader was going to say something else when, checking his side's wing mirror, he saw a very familiar looking set of headlights. He first found it hard to believe but then, he shook his head and speaking towards the radio's mike, he said:

'Junya, what do you think you're doing?'

'Nothing,' they heard Junya reply through the speakers.

'Do you want to go ahead?' Akito asked him.

'No,' Junya replied, 'I'm enjoying the show, keep on going.'

'Alright,' Akito said coolly, 'have it your way.'

'Oh, I will,' was Junya's unsettling answer.

Kyosuke glanced at Akito ready to tell him to stop the car when he saw that the young racer's expression was one of total clam. For this reason, he remained quiet and decided to let the kid enjoy the downhill drive. Corner after corner, Akito grew more and more confident with the car and by the time they reached the mid-point of the course, his driving was as close to perfection as possible, considering that it was the first time he'd driven the RZ-1 and that he had only driven Mt Akagi's downhill once and it had been over half a year ago.

'This car is amazing,' Akito commented.

'Thanks,' Kyosuke replied feeling very proud.

'I wonder if you'd let me try something,' Akito said.

'What do you want to do?' Kyosuke asked.

'I'd like to know what doing a full inertia drift feels like with this car,' Akito replied.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'go ahead.'

The kid waited until the following corner and, once there, he worked with the shifter and adjusted his pedal work and then, Kyosuke felt his car sliding first towards one side and immediately after towards the other, entering the turn in a four-wheel inertia drift which took them all the way to the exit of the right-hander. A perfectly executed manoeuvre.

'You know,' Kyosuke commented as soon as he could speak again, 'I think your grandfather would be proud.'

'Nah,' Akito said, 'he can do this with his eyes closed, without hands and while lighting a cigarette.'

Kyosuke was going to let out a chuckle when he saw that the S18 had got dangerously close to the RZ-1's rear bumper.

'I have an idea,' they heard Junya saying over the radio, 'let's see who gets to the parking area first.'

'Don't be stupid,' Kyosuke said.

'Come on,' Junya insisted, 'just a tiny little race, Mr Rookie of the Year surely can handle that.'

'Alright,' Akito said tiredly, 'let's get this over with.'

'Akito…'

'Trust me,' Akito interrupted him, sparing a second to give Kyosuke a look which told him that he had everything under control. Kyosuke just nodded once and, once again, he decided to trust his best friend.

Returning his attention back on the road, Akito steeled himself against the RZ-1's steering wheel and just then, the impromptu race started with Akito immediately pulling away from the S18, entering the following left-hander a full second before Junya did. Kyosuke checked the car's speedometer and saw that they were now travelling at over one hundred kilometres an hour. He found it surprising, mainly due to the fact that Akito didn't seem to be having a hard time keeping the car under control. In fact, the kid was having fun.

They kept on going with Akito keeping a steady gap in between the two cars when, with just a quarter of the distance to go, Kyosuke noticed that Akito had started slowing down and thus the gap started shrinking too. He went to ask him what was wrong when, he saw Akito placing his index on top of his lips asking him to be quiet. He then waited for the S18 to catch up with him and, just as the two cars cleared one of the faster corners of the road, Akito seemed to make a miscalculation which made him exit the corner going a little too wide.

Predictably, Junya used up that chance to pass him while Akito pretended having trouble getting his car back onto the ideal racing line. Kyosuke was going to ask him what he was doing when, thinking about it for a moment, he figured it out by himself. Because of this, he pressed the button which muted the radio's mike and, frowning a little, he said:

'You did that on purpose.'

'Yeah,' Akito replied.

'Why?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Because if he thinks he's won this stupid race he'll get off my case,' Akito replied.

Kyosuke was so surprised that he first did a double take before he let out a highly amused chuckle.

'You know he'll brag about this forever, don't you?'

'I don't care,' Akito said, 'I just want him to stop being an idiot.'

'Me and you both,' Kyosuke said with a smile full of understanding.

By the time they got back into the parking area, Junya was already telling everyone who would listen that he had managed to beat Mr Rookie of the Year and when Kyosuke and Akito got out of the RZ-1, they found Kizuna, Ryoko and Kazuya waiting, all three of them sporting the same worried and incredulous expressions on their faces. Kazuya was the first to speak:

'Is it true?'

'What is?' Akito asked him.

'That my cousin passed you up there,' Kazuya said.

'Of course I did,' Junya spoke before Akito did, 'I've always said this kid was a thousand years too early for street racing.'

'That's right,' Akito said somehow keeping his cool, 'I still have lots more to learn.'

'Akito...' Kizuna started but right then Kyosuke gave her a look that made her remain silent.

'What happened?' Ryoko asked.

Akito got closer to her and, whispering in her ear, he said:

'I'll tell you later.'

The Halloween gathering ended with Junya feeling like the night's hero and with Kyosuke, Seisuke and Kizuna, both had been let in into the 'secret' by their leader, humouring him while the rest of the Arrows didn't really know what to think. True to his word, Akito didn't seem to be too bothered by the whole thing and instead, he spent the rest of the evening talking to Ryoko about her upcoming ice-skating season and discussing their plans for their second Christmas as a couple.

_To be continued…_


	40. Chapter Thirty Nine

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Thirty Nine_

A week before Christmas, Kizuna was snuggled against Kyosuke's shoulder while the two sat on one of the two large couches at the Takahashi residence's main living room, picking at freshly made popcorn while watching an old documentary on the life of Mr Gottlieb Daimler, the German engineer famous for inventing the first high speed petrol engine. They had watched half of the video when they heard the front door opening and that made them sit up, rushing to get some room in between the two of them in an attempt to look more decent.

'We're home!' Seisuke exclaimed slightly louder than necessary.

'That idiot,' Kyosuke muttered while Kizuna let out a sigh of relief and lent back onto his shoulder.

'Hey,' Ryoko said coming into the room smiling, 'what are you guys watching?'

'A documentary,' Kizuna replied.

'What about?' she asked.

'The inventor of the petrol engine,' Kyosuke said.

'Oh,' the girl said trying and failing to sound impressed, 'right, very interesting. I'll go and get changed.'

Meanwhile Seisuke had already sat down on the other couch and grabbed one of his medical magazines.

'How did the exam on forensic anatomy go?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Well enough,' Seisuke replied, 'we'll get the results next week but I'm fairly confident I passed.'

'Great,' the older brother said.

The three of them remained then quiet but the silence didn't last for too long. In fact, just ten minutes later Ryoko walked back into the room, her school uniform replaced with a pair of light grey trousers and a thin black jumper. She proceeded to sit next to her cousin Seisuke and started telling them about her day.

'Oh, I nearly forgot,' she said looking at Kizuna who was now sitting up, 'you'll come with Kyosuke to watch my ice-skating festival, won't you? Tomorrow is the deadline to apply for the tickets so I need to know how many I'll need.'

'Of course I will,' Kizuna replied, 'when is it?'

'The afternoon of Christmas Eve,' Ryoko replied.

'Oh, I'm very sorry,' she said, 'but I won't be here that day.'

'You won't?' Kyosuke asked her voicing the question Ryoko was about to ask.

'Er…no, of course not,' Kizuna replied.

'Where are you going to be?' Kyosuke asked her.

'I'm going back home,' Kizuna replied, 'I did tell you I was going back to the States for Christmas, didn't I?'

'No, you didn't,' Kyosuke replied.

'I'm pretty sure I did,' Kizuna countered.

'I would remember if you did,' Kyosuke insisted.

'Okay, okay,' Ryoko intervened, 'it's fine, I…'

'When are you leaving?' Kyosuke asked Kizuna totally ignoring her cousin.

'On the 22nd,' Kizuna replied, 'I have to catch two different flights to get to Charlotte so I need the extra time if I want to get home for Christmas Eve. Uncle Josh is pretty traditional when it comes to the holidays.'

'So,' Kyosuke said, 'you won't be here for Christmas Day.'

'No,' Kizuna replied hating how purposely slow Kyosuke was being, 'honey, I'm sure I did tell you about it.'

'I'm sure you didn't,' he said, 'but it's alright…'

'No it's not,' Kizuna interrupted him, 'I just remembered when I mentioned this to you: it was back when we first met that I told you about my plane ticket and the fact that the return date was on December 22nd so that I could go back home for Christmas.'

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke said, 'we met in March, how am I supposed to remember something you told me that far back? You should have tried to remind me closer to the actual date so that I could prepare myself mentally.'

'Oh come on,' Kizuna protested, 'you should have figured out that I'd want to go to the States for Christmas, it's where my family lives and Christmas is a family holiday, isn't it?'

'Not in Japan it isn't,' Kyosuke countered.

'What?'

'Kizuna,' Seisuke intervened trying to bring some calm into their heated conversation, 'Christmas, in Japan, is a lover's holiday. You're supposed to spend the day with the one you love. That's kind of our tradition here.'

'Ah,' Kizuna gasped, 'I didn't know about that…'

'You're half-Japanese,' Kyosuke pointed out coldly.

'So?' Kizuna said, 'I was brought up in the States!'

'Guys…' Ryoko tried again.

'Look,' Kizuna tried again, 'I'm sorry I didn't remind you about it but you're totally overreacting.'

'No I'm not,' Kyosuke stubbornly replied.

'Yes, you are,' Kizuna said.

'Guys,' Ryoko repeated, this time raising her voice a little.

'Fine, I'm overreacting,' Kyosuke said, 'I mean, what's with me wanting to spend Christmas with my girlfriend? Sure, go home why don't you stay there for New Years and my birthday too while you're at it?'

With that he got up from the sofa and glancing at the three people there with an ugly scowl, he just stormed out of the room looking angrier than any of them had ever seen him. Seisuke looked pretty shocked while Kizuna was positively flabbergasted and Ryoko felt so guilty about the whole thing she wanted to cry.

'It's not your fault,' Kizuna said seeing the younger girl's expression.

'Yes it is,' Ryoko said, 'I'm the one who brought it up, I…'

'It's alright,' Kizuna insisted patting her on her hand, 'he'll get over it.'

'I don't think he will,' Seisuke finally said.

'Why?' Kizuna asked.

'Because this was going to be his first Christmas having a girlfriend,' Seisuke said, 'I bet you anything he's been working for weeks preparing a big day for you two and, since you won't be here…'

'You really think he had something in mind?' Kizuna asked him.

'More than likely,' Ryoko replied, 'this is Kyosuke we're talking about, he just loves planning things ahead.'

'That's true,' Kizuna commented biting her lower lip feeling a bit guilty.

'I think you should go to talk to him,' Ryoko suggested.

'Yeah,' Seisuke added, 'you know well he'll just sit in his corner of woe until you do.'

Kizuna smiled a little and, getting up from the sofa, she went upstairs and walked towards Kyosuke's bedroom, knocking on the door a couple of times, opening it immediately after without waiting for his reply. There, lying on his bed with the lights turned off, she saw Kyosuke looking like he was very close to tears.

'Honey,' Kizuna said as gently as she could, 'I'm really, really sorry about not telling you about my trip.'

She remained quiet for a bit during which Kyosuke didn't attempt to speak.

'I didn't know that you were preparing something…'

'You know well I was,' he finally said, his voice rough with anger, 'I had this whole idea and now…'

'I'm really sorry about that,' Kizuna said making another effort to be reasonable, 'but you should know that I will be back in time for New Years and I'll definitely be here to celebrate your twentieth birthday with you.'

'Really?' Kyosuke asked her now sounding like a little boy.

'Of course,' Kizuna said smiling, 'I wouldn't miss it for the world.'

'I'm sorry too,' Kyosuke finally said and this time he got up from his bed, sitting on the edge.

Kizuna closed the distance between the door and the bed and, sitting next to him, she grabbed his hand.

'It's okay,' she said.

'No it's not,' Kyosuke said, 'I shouldn't have got mad.'

'Hey,' she said, 'it's fine. It's good to know you're a human being after all.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Kyosuke asked her.

'Nothing,' she replied, 'now, are you going to give me a make up kiss or not?'

When a few minutes and quite a lot of make up kisses later the two of them joined Seisuke and Ryoko back at the main living room, Ryoko had the decency of pretending that nothing was wrong while she had to nudge her elbow onto Seisuke's ribcage in order to stop him from teasing the couple. Thankfully, right at that moment the original set of Takahashi brothers stepped into the room followed by their wives.

'Welcome back!' Ryoko said getting up to kiss her father on the cheek.

'How was the movie?' Kyosuke asked to his own father.

'Not bad,' Ryosuke replied, 'I did prefer the book though.'

'Books are always better,' Akiko commented.

'I didn't understand any of it,' Keisuke complained dropping his large frame on the couch.

'That's because you fell asleep half way through it,' Kyoko pointed out giving him her sweetest smile.

'Anyway,' Akiko said glancing at the half eaten bowl of popcorn, 'I hope that stuff didn't kill your appetite.'

'Of course not Mum,' Seisuke reassured her, 'we're ravishing, aren't we guys?'

'I'm glad to hear that,' Akiko said, 'Kizuna-chan, you'll join us for dinner, right?'

'Er…' she hesitated, 'I wouldn't want to impose.'

'Don't be silly dear,' Akiko laughed softly, 'I even bought some of those meat ravioli you like so much…'

Later on that evening, Kyosuke, Seisuke and Kizuna met up with a few of the Arrows for a quick training session up Mt Akagi. It had just finished snowing so it was a prefect chance to put into practice some of the advice they had got from Takumi on how to drive safely on snow while still travelling as fast as possible.

'It's freezing!' Kizuna complained while she drank from her can of hot coffee.

'Stay in your car,' Kyosuke said, 'you don't want to get sick four days before an intercontinental flight.'

'That's true,' Kizuna replied.

She went to lock herself in the 350Z while they saw Eiji's black Honda and Masato's red Toyota driving into the car park after finishing their run. Junya decided that it was his turn to have a go and started driving up on his own while Eiji and Masato walked towards the vending machine to get something warm to drink.

'I'm telling you,' Eiji was saying, 'my Mika-chan doesn't like that sort of stuff.'

'I don't know,' Masato replied, 'I still think you should just take her for a nice meal and…'

'That's just so common!' Eiji exclaimed, 'I want to do something…you know…special, it's Christmas after all!'

Seisuke had to make a physical effort not to laugh when he saw his older brother's expression. It was such a contradicting mix: understanding Eiji's feelings, being jealous that the guy got to spend Christmas with his girlfriend and also, a bit of leftover anger at the fact that all his carefully orchestrated plan was now ruined.

'I'm going up too,' Kyosuke announced a little too brusquely.

'What's up with him?' Eiji asked once the yellow RZ-1 was gone.

'Nothing,' Seisuke replied, 'he just gets a little emotional during the holidays.'

'Really?' Masato asked, 'I would have never thought Kyosuke-san cared much for these things…'

'If only you knew,' Seisuke half-muttered.

'What was that?' Eiji asked him.

'Nothing,' Seisuke repeated, 'I think I'll just drive up too.'

December 22nd came all too soon for Kyosuke and he had barely got used to the idea that he and Kizuna weren't going to be together for Christmas that he had to watch her walking out of her apartment carrying a small suitcase with her. He got immediately out of his car so that he could help her place her luggage into the boot while he repeated the same mental mantra he'd been using to reassure himself: she's coming back.

'It's just a week,' Kizuna said, 'you won't even have the time to miss me.'

'That's impossible,' Kyosuke replied sounding very serious.

Knowing that it was a lost battle, Kizuna gave up trying to make him feel a bit better and, instead, she tried to focus on making sure she had the strength to leave him because, in all honesty, ever since she'd learned about how much Christmas meant to Kyosuke, she'd been dying to call her mother to tell her that she had changed her mind and that she wanted to stay in Japan over the holiday season too. Then, she remembered about her Uncle Josh and the fact that the man had already acquired the best tree in the whole region and that he was eager to decorate it, singing All-American Christmas Carols while her mother took pictures.

Travelling in silence, lost in their own thoughts, Kizuna and Kyosuke made it to Narita International Airport a lot sooner than neither wanted. Kyosuke drove his car into the short-stay car park and then, unloading the suitcase, the two of them walked towards the Japan Airlines check-in area, finding a young girl at the desk.

'Are you travelling together?' she asked Kyosuke offering him a smile.

'No,' Kizuna said, 'it's just me.'

'Oh,' the girl said with an unnecessary giggle, 'may I have your passport, please?'

Kizuna tried to ignore the way the girl had started eyeing Kyosuke but, by the time her suitcase was taken away by the transportation belt, she made it a point of passing her arm around Kyosuke's so that she could somehow ensure that the check-in girl knew that he was taken. She had the satisfaction of seeing the girl's smile disappear, getting replaced by a tight grimace while she muttered a fake sounding, 'have a nice trip.'

'What's wrong?' Kyosuke asked her while they walked away from the desk.

'Nothing,' Kizuna lied, 'it's just that I'm a bit nervous.'

'You could always stay,' Kyosuke had to try one last time.

'I can't,' she said, 'and I feel horrible because I haven't left yet but I wish I was back already and I don't really want my Mum to think that I'm not happy to be back home because in reality, I can't wait to see her.'

'Hey,' Kyosuke soothed her, 'I know I've been very unreasonable these past few days…'

'You had every right to be,' Kizuna pointed out, 'if I had remembered about the difference in traditions…'

'You would still have had to go back home,' Kyosuke said, 'your mother hasn't seen you since February, that's nearly a year. It's a long time for a mother not to see her child; she's probably dying to see you too.'

'She is,' Kizuna confirmed, 'she's asked me three times to confirm my time of arrival.'

Kyosuke let out a long sigh and, taking her in his arms, he gave her a quick hug.

'I'll be fine, besides, I'm sure you'll come back to me.'

'Confident, are we?' she teased him.

'Of course,' Kyosuke said, 'I have your car in our garage. She'll be my hostage until I get you back.'

'That's a very dirty trick, sir,' Kizuna complained.

'All is fair in love and war,' Kyosuke said with his usual grin.

'True,' she admitted then, she glanced at her watch and realised that she still had to go through security.

'You've got to go,' he said and it wasn't a question. Nevertheless, she nodded, 'alright, I'll walk you.'

It still took them ten minutes before the two of them finally said their "I'll-see-you-soon" and by the time Kyosuke made it back to his car, he realised that he'd spent nearly half an hour seeing her off and that he was mentally exhausted in his effort to remain calm and collected. Only in the darkness of his car he allowed himself to be a depressed as he felt. Placing his hands on top of the steering wheel, he let out another sigh.

'Alright girl,' he said talking to his car, 'let's go home.'

He arrived back at Maebashi just before dinner and while he parked his car at the usual spot next to Seisuke's RZ-1, he took a good look at Kizuna's beautiful machine which was now parked at the back of the garage together with his mother's old MX5. The small roadster was now covered up but Kyosuke knew that his father and uncle took it in turns to take it out for a spin as regularly as they could. Glancing once again at Kizuna's Nissan, he placed his hand on top of the bonnet and stayed like that for a few moments.

When Kyosuke finally stepped into the house, he found his brother walking down the corridor looking, if possible, even more depressed than he was and was going to ask what was wrong when he also heard Ryoko coming down the stairs followed by her father, the two seemed to be arguing about something.

'Dad,' Ryoko said, 'for the last time, I will never speak to you if you call our coach again.'

'But baby…'

Both brothers watched her stop at the bottom of the stairs and say:

'Dad, the new uniforms we'll be wearing at the festival are not _too revealing_. If anything, they're actually rather prude.'

'Prude?' Keisuke exclaimed, 'but, they're _this_ short and even a bikini would be more decent.'

'Alright,' Ryoko said, 'if you think they're indecent, then I'll make you watch my DVD collection with the highlights of the past five ice skating world championships, this way you'll see that our uniforms are pretty standard.'

Kyosuke and Seisuke had to repress a chuckle seeing the horror on their uncle's face.

'Alright, alright,' he said, 'I give up.'

'Thank you,' Ryoko replied giving him a sweet smile.

Father and daughter got into the living room without even noticing that the two brothers were there, in any case, Kyosuke saw that the grin which had appeared on his younger brother's face while watching the scene was gone and it had now been replaced by a depressed expression, very much like the one he had himself.

'What's up?' Kyosuke asked Seisuke.

'Kaori just called,' he replied, 'she said that some family stuff has come up and she can't make it to the festival and she isn't sure whether she'll be free for Christmas either so I might end up as dateless as you.'

'That's too bad,' Kyosuke commented trying to be sympathetic.

'Admit it though,' Seisuke said, 'you're a little bit happy that I might be all alone too.'

'Not really,' Kyosuke denied, 'but hey, if she does bail on you, we can still use the idea I had for my date with Kizuna.'

'Yuck!' Seisuke protested, 'Aniki, no offence, but I'm not so desperate that I need to go on a date with you.'

'Idiot,' Kyosuke laughed, 'I was thinking of taking Kizuna to one of those paintball parks.'

'You were going to spend Christmas with your beloved girlfriend, _shooting_ at her?' a surprised Seisuke asked.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'Kizuna's always talking about how much she'd like to go and I found an indoors one near Nagano, I even made sure that it'll be open for Christmas.'

'You know,' Seisuke considered, 'that doesn't sound like a bad idea at all…'

'It's always good to have a Plan B,' Kyosuke said staring to walk towards the living room.

'Wait,' Seisuke stopped him, 'are you saying that I'm your Plan B?'

Kyosuke just smirked and, without giving him an answer, the nearly twenty year old joined his uncle and cousin in the living room, giving Seisuke no option but to follow him there too. Less than an hour later the rest of their family got back home and for the second time in days, they enjoyed a sit-down meal altogether.

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, the Takahashi clan met up with the Fujiwara at Maebashi's municipal ice rink taking the seats Ryoko had reserved for them. Akito, as usual, was very eager to watch his girlfriend back on her element and therefore paid very little attention to anything else while his sister Haruko talked to their father asking him which one was faster, going on ice skates or driving a go-kart around a track.

'I have no idea,' Takumi replied honestly.

'I think go-karts are faster,' Ryosuke explained to Haruko, 'however, there are some disciplines of ice skating which are definitely fast. For instance, there's…'

'Dear,' Akiko interrupted the potentially lengthy explanation, 'I'm sure Haruko doesn't need so much detail.'

'Of course,' Ryosuke replied.

'Shush,' Akito complained, 'they're starting.'

Just then, the lights at the ice rink dimmed to almost complete darkness and soon after that, they saw a group of skaters led by Ryoko. All sixteen of them carried blue penlights forming a straight line. From there, they all set themselves around the ice rink and then some soft, classic music started and the skaters started dancing following the rhythm, arranging all sorts of different star-shaped patterns and other figures.

They were gone a few minutes later and then, the light's intensity increased again and one by one all the skaters had their turn to perform. Ryoko was one of the last ones to come out. Her performance included several high-advanced techniques, including the one that had caused her knee injury exactly one year prior.

'I can't watch,' they heard her mother Kyoko muttering while Ryoko was up in the air.

'Don't be silly,' Akiko said.

When Ryoko landed safely, there was a round of applause which became a deafening cheer once she finished her performance. Kyosuke and Seisuke watched their baby cousin as she went around one last time and, just before she went back in to the dressing rooms, she turned to face Akito and waved at him once.

'Hey baby!' Keisuke waved back at her instead, 'did you see that?' he said, 'she waved at her daddy!'

None of them had the heart to contradict him.

The show went on for nearly another hour and just as the skaters were coming out for a final group exercise, Kyosuke's phone started ringing. Pulling it out as quickly as possible, he was going to press the button to ignore the call when he saw that it was Kazuya's number. He knew that if Kazuya called him, it was something important so, moving his thumb onto the other button, he got up and answered the call.

'Hello?' he whispered.

'Kyosuke,' Kazuya said, he sounded urgent, 'we've got a problem.'

'What's wrong?' Kyosuke said rushing towards the door.

'Someone I know has just told me they've seen Eiji driving up Mt Akagi,' he replied, Kyosuke was going to ask what was so extraordinary about that when Kazuya added, 'they told me that he was doing zig-zags.'

'Zig-zags?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yeah,' Kazuya said, 'you know, the sort drunk people do when they drive.'

'You think he's…'

'I don't know,' Kazuya replied, 'but I thought we needed to find out. Where are you?'

'At the ice rink,' Kyosuke said, 'Seisuke and I will head to the pass right now, I'll see you there.'

'Alright,' Kazuya said.

Not wanting an unnecessary delay, he sent Seisuke a message telling him what had happened asking him to apologise in his stead to their family and to start driving to Mt Akagi as soon as possible. While he did that he made his way back to his RZ-1 and by the time he had his seatbelt fastened, his brother was already running towards his car. Within a few moments, both Mazda were headed towards Mt Akagi's pass.

Once there, they started driving up as fast as the heavy snow allowed them to but, thankfully, they didn't need to go too far and just as they thought they would, they found the car they were looking for. The only thing they weren't expecting was to find Eiji's beautiful NSX RR badly smashed against a big tree with a seemingly unconscious Eiji still trapped in it.

'Oh shit,' Seisuke said.

The future doctor stopped his car and, before he climbed out of it, he grabbed the well equipped first aid kit he always carried with him. This made it possible for Kyosuke to reach Eiji first and by the time Seisuke got there, his older brother had already managed to open the driver's side door finding a semi-awake Eiji inside. If the smell wasn't enough, finding a nearly empty bottle of sake next to him made it all very clear.

'Eiji,' Kyosuke said, 'can you hear me?'

'Eh?' Eiji slurred while he leant onto the steering wheel's fully inflated airbag, 'oh…Leader…'

'Eiji,' Seisuke asked, 'are you hurt? Did you…'

'Hurt?' Eiji half mumbled, 'yeah, everything hurts, my heart hurts.'

'Your heart?' a confused Kyosuke asked him.

'She's pregnant,' Eiji said finally looking up, his handsome face was drenched with tears.

'What?' Seisuke asked.

'Eiji,' Kyosuke guessed, 'is it Mika-chan who's pregnant?'

'Yeah,' Eiji said letting out a bitter sounding chuckle, 'only that…you know…I can't be the father…'

'What?' Seisuke breathed.

'I CAN'T BE THE FATHER,' Eiji shouted grabbing himself to the front of Seisuke's parka, he then let go and started crying again then, sounding utterly miserable, he said, 'how can I be, if I've never made love to her?'

_To be continued…_


	41. Chapter Forty

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty_

The unmistakable sound of an engine made Kyosuke and Seisuke look away from Eiji, both sporting the same panicking expressions on their faces. Half expecting to see a police car driving up the pass, the two brothers were immensely relieved when they saw Kazuya's red GD4 approaching at a rather high speed before only coming to a halt when it was a couple of metres away from the smashed up NSX RR. He got out of his Civic leaving its engine running and sounding as freaked out as he looked, he asked:

'Is Eiji...'

'Seisuke'll fill you in,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'now you're here, I'll go to the Centre to get a truck.'

'Good idea,' Seisuke replied, he then returned his attention to Eiji and said, 'mate, let's get you out of here.'

While Kyosuke made his way to his RZ-1, Kazuya did his best to unfasten Eiji's racing seatbelt while Seisuke tried to calm a sobbing Eiji down enough so that he would start cooperating. The poor guy was so distraught that it took the combined efforts of both Kazuya and Seisuke just to get him up from his car's bucket seat.

'Ouch,' they heard him complain.

'What's wrong?' Seisuke asked, 'you did hurt yourself, didn't you?'

'My ankle hurts,' Eiji wept.

'Seisuke will take care of that,' Kazuya said trying to sound reassuring.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'let's get you into my car first, okay?'

'Yeah,' Eiji mumbled.

It took a significant amount of time to get the guy to stand up outside his car. Seisuke spent a few moments to do a very quick assessment of what he could see of Eiji's body and, other than a pronounced limp, the guy seemed to have escaped the crash practically unharmed. Unfortunately, Eiji was so drunk and upset that he could barely walk, both Kazuya and Seisuke were frankly surprised the guy had even been able to turn his car's engine on, let alone drive it.

'You're a mess,' Kazuya said once Eiji was sitting on Seisuke's RZ-1's passenger seat, 'why did you…'

'Kazuya,' Seisuke interrupted him, 'it can wait. Now,' he added talking to Eiji, 'let me see that foot of yours.'

Removing Eiji's trainer proved to be a lot harder than Seisuke imagined, mainly because it looked like Eiji had somehow twisted his ankle, it had probably become stuck in between the pedals shortly after the crash. While he worked on removing the sock, he saw that it was starting to become inflamed and unless he did something about it fast, it would hurt too much for Eiji to be able to walk. For this reason, he applied an ointment before he used a compressed bandage to cover the entire articulation.

'That should do it for now,' Seisuke said to Eiji, 'you'll probably need painkillers later, do you have any?'

'I should have some at home,' a much calmer Eiji said.

'Here,' Kazuya added handing him a can containing what had been hot coffee, 'it's cold now but…'

'It's fine,' Eiji said accepting it.

Seisuke and Kazuya waited until he drank some of it. The caffeine had an immediate effect and soon Eiji was a lot more sober than he'd been a few minutes ago. He was also no longer crying but his expression was still one of absolute devastation and Seisuke hated himself for having to make him relive his pain.

'Eiji,' he said, 'what you said about Maki-chan…'

'What about her?' Kazuya asked.

'She's pregnant,' Eiji replied his eyes getting watery once again, 'but I'm not the father. You see? She's only seventeen and I thought that it was too early for her to start doing certain things so I decided to wait until she'd turn eighteen next year.'

'But then…'

'Apparently,' Eiji said interrupting Seisuke, 'she's started seeing some guy from her school.'

'Oh crap,' a shocked Kazuya said, 'I'm very sorry mate.'

'I take you broke up with her,' Seisuke asked.

'No,' was Eiji's surprising reply.

'Why not?' Seisuke asked an angry edge on his voice, 'she's…'

'She's in trouble,' Eiji replied, 'she told me that guy doesn't want anything to do with the baby and that she doesn't know what to do.'

'What a bastard,' Kazuya said.

'I know,' Eiji agreed with a sad smile.

'What are you going to do?' Seisuke asked him.

'I don't know,' Eiji said, 'I just know that I can't leave her alone. I just love her too much and…'

'Hey,' Kazuya stopped him, 'I can't tell you what you should do but I don't think you should make any decisions right now. I think you need to calm down a bit first and then think about what you can do for her.'

'That's right,' Seisuke said, 'first of all, we need to get you somewhere a lot warmer…'

'I want to go home,' Eiji confessed, 'but…' he stopped speaking throwing a sorry glance at his crashed car.

'Don't worry about it,' Kazuya said, 'Kyosuke will take care of that. I can't believe I'm saying this but it's just a car. We can always repair a car but, honestly, promise us that you'll never do something as stupid as driving while you're trashed with alcohol. If the police had found you instead of us, your license would have been a goner. You could have hurt someone as well and then you'd be sent to prison on top of it.'

'Yeah,' Seisuke added, 'how can you help Maki-chan if you're locked up?'

'I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking,' Eiji said.

'That much is obvious,' Kazuya added only half-jokingly but that made Eiji smile a little.

'Thanks guys,' he said.

'Hey,' Seisuke said, 'we're your mates, that's what we're here for, right Kazu-kun?'

'Exactly,' Kazuya replied, 'it's just like the Doctor said.'

By the time Kyosuke came back driving one of the Centre's towing trucks, the three guys looked like they had just met up there for a friendly chat and only Eiji's crashed Honda served as a reminder that they needed to move fast. While Kazuya stayed with Eiji, the two Takahashi brothers worked to get the NSX loaded onto the truck's platform and less than ten minutes later, they were all good to go.

'Alright,' Kazuya said, 'I'm going to take this rascal home, I take you guys will be alright?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'Eiji, we'll keep your car in our garage until you decide what to do with it, okay?'

'Sure,' Eiji replied, 'thanks for everything.'

'You're welcome,' Kyosuke said, 'and do me a favour, don't…'

'No more drinking and driving,' Eiji said and, briefly going back to his usual self, he said, 'I solemnly swear.'

'I'm glad to hear that,' Kyosuke replied with a relieved smile on his face.

On Christmas morning, Eiji was lying on his bed still dressed with the same clothes he'd been wearing when he'd crashed his beloved car. His father had become very suspicious when he'd seen him arriving in Kazuya's Civic but, fortunately for Eiji, Kazuya showed him the reason why he was going to be a great politician when the guy himself explained to Eiji's father that they were in the process of doing some major modifications to the NSX and that Eiji had twisted his ankle while getting out from underneath it. He sounded so convincing that his father just smiled and said that he was looking forward to seeing the result of their hard work.

Eiji let out a depressed sigh, realising that if he put his plan into action, his father would probably never see the car again. He'd been thinking about it all night long, trying to figure out a way in which he could help Mika, he didn't even know if she wanted to keep the baby but since she hadn't mention anything about getting an abortion he assumed that she would go ahead with the pregnancy. If that was the case, Eiji saw no other option but to try and repair his car so that he could sell it and use the money as deposit for a small apartment. He would also need to drop out from university and find himself a full time job which would pay well enough so that he could support Mika and the baby.

He knew that the hardest part of his plan would be to convince his family to accept the situation. He guessed that he could just tell them that the baby was his because, even if his parents were rather strict and would probably be very disappointed in their son, there would be no way they'd turn their backs on their own grandchild. The hardest bit for him would be the fact that he would need to quit the Golden Arrows. Street racing was an expensive hobby and with a baby on the way…

'Eiji,' he heard his mother's voice through the door, 'Mika-chan's here.'

Springing up from the bed, Eiji was so surprised to hear that that he even forgot about his ankle. He was immediately reminded when he landed on it and it sent a painful jib all the way up his hip.

'Ouch,' he complained as quietly as he could.

'Eiji?' his mother repeated.

'I'm coming,' he said trying to sound as normal as possible.

Walking out of his bedroom limping quite visibly, he mumbled some incomprehensive reply to his mother's dry remark about the fact that he had obviously slept with his clothes on and, instead, he focused on trying to come up with what would probably be the most difficult conversation of his entire life. Taking a deep breath, he entered the living room finding his girlfriend of the past three and a half years there, waiting for him.

'Hi,' Mika said seeing him.

'Hey,' Eiji replied.

'I wasn't sure if you wanted to see me,' Mika started.

'I do,' Eiji said then, glancing over at the kitchen where he saw his mother making breakfast, he said, 'let's go for a walk…'

'I don't think that's a good idea,' Mika said.

'Why?' Eiji said.

'I'm here to break up with you,' Mika simply said, 'Hiro-kun…'

'What?' Eiji interrupted her, 'what did you just say?'

'Hiro-kun called me this morning,' she explained very calmly, 'he says that he panicked at first but that now…'

'Wait,' he stopped her again, 'what are you saying?'

'He'll take care of me,' she said, 'everything's going to be fine.'

'Mika…'

'I just wanted to tell you in person,' she said, 'I'm really sorry.'

To Eiji, she didn't really look it. If anything, she looked happy as if everything had gone according to plan.

'You know,' the girl continued, 'I am sorry for how it's ended but, to be honest, it's all your own fault. If you hadn't been so overprotective with me, if you had realised that I was no longer a little girl, then I would…'

'Mika,' Eiji said feeling a sudden and dangerous burst of anger, 'don't even try to turn this on me.'

'It's the way I feel,' she said getting up, 'you never saw me as a woman so it's your fault that I'm…'

'Get out,' he barked, 'get out of this house and never show your face to me ever again.'

Mika looked like she'd been slapped but recovering a little too fast, she just shook her head and walked out of the living room just as Eiji's mother was coming in from the kitchen carrying a tray with two cups of tea.

'Mika-chan,' she said, 'aren't you going to have some tea?'

'No thank you,' the girl replied then, she glanced at Eiji and said, 'Merry Christmas.'

Those two words stabbed Eiji straight into the heart making him feel like he would die with the sheer pain. He didn't even register what his mother was telling him, he only realised that he had somehow followed Mika out of the house and that while she walked away from it, he headed out in the opposite direction walking aimlessly while his eyes filled with angry tears. His whole body ached so much that he didn't even notice the pain coming from his hurt ankle and that allowed him to walk all the way to the district's bridge.

He made it all the way to the middle of it and leaning against the railing, facing the half-frozen stream which ran underneath, he started replaying the conversation he'd just had with his girlfriend. He simply could not believe that, after all, she was blaming him for what had happened. After everything he'd done, everything he had been prepared to do for her. All the love he felt for her…she just didn't want any of it. She had walked out of his life looking like she'd actually been relieved. As if he'd been a nuisance in her life.

Swallowing a brand new wave of pain, Eiji glanced at the water running through patches of ice and before he even knew what he was doing, he found himself sitting on top of the railing his crazed, pain-filled brain wondering how long it would take for him to drown before deciding that he'd probably die of hypothermia way before he'd have the time to drown.

'Hey,' he heard someone, a very familiar sounding voice coming from behind his back, 'nice day, isn't it?'

Eiji didn't even need to turn round to know who the owner of the voice was.

'Kyosuke-san...'

'Say,' the Golden Arrows leader said, 'why don't you get down from there and come with me?'

That made him turn round and, just then, he saw that Kyosuke was speaking from inside his RZ-1.

'You see,' Kyosuke continued, trying very hard to hide just how freaked out he was, 'I was originally going to go to your house to check on you, just to make sure you were okay but I have a hidden agenda too.'

'Hidden agenda?' Eiji said still sitting on top of the railing.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'since Kizuna is in America, I wanted to see how many of you I could recruit to go to a paintball park near Nagano with me.'

'A paintball park?' Eiji asked.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied, 'you know, where we shoot at each other with paintballs and the one who's cleanest wins.'

'I see,' Eiji said, 'how many people have you recruited?'

'Well,' Kyosuke confessed, 'you're the first one I ask.'

'What about Seisuke?' Eiji asked.

'Don't mention that traitor,' Kyosuke said with an obviously faked scowl, 'he's decided to ditch his only brother in favour of going out with his girlfriend.'

'How unconsidered of him,' Eiji half-joked.

'Right?' Kyosuke said then, he sobered up and said, 'so, can I count you in?'

'Yeah,' Eiji said finally jumping back onto the pavement, 'I'm in.'

'Good,' Kyosuke said and, this time, he allowed himself to look extremely relieved but he made no mention of what he'd just witnessed, instead, he waited until Eiji was in the car to say, 'I don't need you to tell me about what brought you here if you don't want to but, whenever you feel like talking, I'm here, okay?'

'Thanks,' Eiji said quietly while he fastened his seatbelt.

'You're welcome,' Kyosuke replied then driving away from the bridge as fast as possible and in an attempt at making a safe enough conversation, he asked, 'so, who should we try to lure into our plan first?'

'Masato,' was Eiji's fast answer, 'he's probably home working on some university paper. He's always been like that, you know? Even when we were at school, he always did his summer homework during the first days of the holidays. It's no wonder he's going to be a teacher.'

'Well,' Kyosuke said, 'I'm also that sort of student.'

'Er...'

'But I'm trying to take things easier,' Kyosuke said, 'in fact, it's one of my New Year's resolutions: to take things easier and, like Seisuke always says, stop worrying about stuff so much.'

'What was your New Year's resolution for this past year?' Eiji asked with curiosity.

'To take things easier and stop worrying about stuff so much,' Kyosuke confessed and that made Eiji let out a chuckle before he realised that he was laughing at his mighty leader.

He tried to sober up a little but, for once, Kyosuke let it pass and started laughing at himself as well. The Golden Arrows leader was happy to see that it looked like Eiji's amazing powers of recovery would help him get over his heartbreak. Until then, he would be there to ensure the guy didn't feel the need to go anywhere near a bridge ever again.

Three days after Christmas and when Kizuna finally returned from the States, with plenty of gifts for the guys including some really cool stickers from the NASCAR series her uncle had got for all thirteen of the Golden Arrows' cars. She was saddened to hear about what had happened during her absence and the girl was only too happy to see that while Eiji's smiles still didn't reach his eyes and that even his usual histrionics had lost a little bit of their genial flamboyance, the guy seemed to be almost back to normal when he went to speak to her during the New Year's party the management of the Centre had organised for their customers and other guests.

'Kizu-chan,' he said.

'Yes Eiji-kun?' she replied with a similar playful tone.

'I had this idea and I wanted to run it through you first,' he said.

'What is it?' Kizuna asked.

'I heard it's Kyosuke-san's birthday soon,' Eiji said.

'It is,' Kizuna confirmed, 'he'll turn twenty in three days.'

'Do you think he'd like a surprise party?' Eiji asked her.

Kizuna considered her reply while she observed her boyfriend who was now busy talking to Akito. The girl remembered how her idea to throw Akito a surprise birthday party had been rejected by Ryoko and Kyosuke but she also remembered that it had been Kyosuke himself who had told her that he didn't think it was a bad idea.

'I think he'd go with it,' she finally replied.

'Splendid,' Eiji said, 'would you like to help?'

'Help?' Kizuna asked.

'Well, if it isn't too much trouble…'

'Hey,' Kizuna said with an accomplice's smile, 'if you don't include me in this I won't talk to you again.'

Eiji returned the smile and nodding once, he bowed a little and said:

'Consider it done, my fair lady.'

Just at that moment, Kyosuke walked towards her and seeing Eiji running away, he frowned and said:

'Did I interrupt something?'

'Of course not,' Kizuna replied, 'now, I'm rather thirsty, where can a girl get something to drink?'

'Let me show you the way,' Kyosuke said offering her his arm which she promptly took.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eiji talking to Kazuya and Seisuke and the naughty expression which appeared on both of their faces meant that they were more than happy to enrol in Eiji's Operation Plan Leader's Surprise Party and she knew that now that those two were involved, the fun would be guaranteed.

'You look happy,' Kyosuke commented while he served her some punch.

'Well,' Kizuna said, 'I'm here with you, you don't exactly expect me to cry, do you?'

'No, of course not,' Kyosuke said, 'I just…forget it, it's something silly.'

'Please tell me,' she told him gently.

'It's nothing,' he insisted.

'Please let me decide that,' she said.

He stared at her for a short while before confessing:

'I feared you'd feel homesick, now you've been back home and all…'

Before she could stop herself or she could consider that they were in the middle of a room full of people which included Kyosuke's aunt and uncle, she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulling him down, she kissed him full on his lips and, giving him a slightly embarrassed smile, she said, 'this is home too.'

Kyosuke felt like he'd just won the lottery.

This blissful state lasted all the way to the morning of his twentieth birthday when he woke up in his room and, as usual, went to check if he had any messages in his phone. He expected he did, after all, it was his birthday and surely Kizuna and a few of his friends ought to have sent him their birthday wishes by email. Alas, the phone told him he was wrong.

Zero messages.

Thinking something was wrong with his phone, he tried switching it off and then back on again. He then waited for the thing to get signal and then waited some more for his inbox to get synchronised. To no avail. No one had sent him any birthday wishes. Not even Kizuna.

Feeling a little stupid for being so depressed about it, he went into his private bathroom, had a quick shower and got dressed with a pair of comfortable but warm black trousers and a grey long sleeved t-shirt and got down to the kitchen expecting to find at least one or two members of his family having breakfast there. Once again, he was wrong.

Surprised that he was entirely on his own in the house, he was beginning to wonder what had happened to his family when he saw a note stuck on the fridge. The neat writing and the four hand-drawn hearts on each of the corners made it very clear that Ryoko had written the note. Taking it from under the magnet, he read it:

'Mum, Aunt Akiko and I are out shopping. Uncle Ryosuke is at work and Dad wants you at the Centre at ten.'

That was it. Nothing else. No birthday wishes from any of them either.

Feeling now rather upset about it, Kyosuke grabbed a bowl and started having breakfast by himself while trying to fight the temptation to call Kizuna. How pathetic would he be if he was the one calling her on his birthday? He gave up trying to eat his cereals after only a spoonful. Leaving the bowl in the sink, he checked his watch and saw that he still had two hours before he had to go to the Centre.

Going back up to his room, he turned his laptop on and checked his email there too, other than a few emails from his classmates and from the online subscriptions he had, there wasn't anything worth reading. He surfed the internet for a bit until he got bored with it and decided to finish writing a paper on fuel economy.

At five minutes to ten, Kyosuke drove his car into the Centre's massive parking area finding it odd that there weren't any other cars parked in it, only his uncle's van and the legendary 86 indicated that there was someone in the Takahashi Motorsports Centre. Unable to withstand the mystery any longer, Kyosuke parked his car next to the Toyota and climbed out of it making his way to the main building as quickly as possible.

He opened the front door and…

'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!'

Right in front of him, he saw the smiling faces of the whole Takahashi and Fujiwara clans, all twelve members of the Golden Arrows together with a few of Kyosuke's classmates from both university and his high school days. He was so astonished by the whole thing that he even failed to realise that, among the confusion of balloons, ribbons and other Ryoko-like fancy stuff, he saw a huge birthday cake shaped like his beloved Mazda RZ-1.

'Surprised?' Kizuna was the first to speak to him.

'Very,' he finally managed to say.

'Mission accomplished,' Eiji, Kazuya and Seisuke said sporting equally satisfied looks.

'Guys,' Kyosuke said only pretending to be mad, 'remind me to kill you later.'

'How scary!' Kazuya laughed.

The birthday party went on for the entire day during which they played videogames using the huge presentation screen at the main meeting room, ate tones of sushi, grilled meat and some other Japanese delicacies courtesy of Kyosuke's parents and took it in turns to drive the Centre's Vera around a snow circuit they had purposely built to test their cornering skills. It wasn't until well into the evening that some people started going home before renewing their birthday wishes to Kyosuke.

'Are you ready to go too?' Kizuna asked him.

'Go?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'I still haven't given you your present.'

'Kizuna,' he said, 'I thought this party was my…' he stopped speaking, his throat going dry seeing the look his girlfriend was giving him, 'Kizuna,' he said, his voice a little strained, 'you don't…you aren't…I mean…are we...'

'Do you think you can drive there or should we just take my car?' she asked looking like she was having fun.

'Er…'

'Alright,' she said now definitely laughing, 'my car it is. I don't think you should be driving right now.'

Kyosuke felt Kizuna's hand taking his and somehow, he ended up following her to her 350Z. His brain too busy thinking about what was about to happen to even consider the fact that if he left his car at the Centre, he'd be stuck in Kizuna's apartment without his own means of transportation. Not that he would have cared.

'Happy birthday to me,' he muttered happily while he climbed into the Nissan.

_To be continued…_


	42. Chapter Forty One

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty One_

A few days before Valentine's and for the fourth night in a row, Kei found himself standing by his white Mitsubishi EVO X holding a stopwatch and wishing he hadn't agreed, again, to come out at this stupid time of the early morning in freezing cold temperatures so that he could help Junya with his training sessions.

'How did I do?' the man asked him climbing out of his Nissan.

'Better than the last run,' Kei repeated for what it felt like the gazillionth time.

'But I'm not yet there, am I?' Junya asked sounding disappointed.

'No, you're not,' Kei confirmed, 'but Junya, you won't beat Kyosuke-san's times with your car and with the road in these conditions. Have you even seen the amount of snow that we still have up there?'

'So what?' Junya asked him.

'So,' Kei said being as patient as he could, 'you can't compare the times he did in summer now that's still winter. Besides, even if you could, there's still the matter of your cars. That S18 of yours is heavier than the RZ-1 and everybody knows that the Mazda is an unbeatable cornering machine.'

'Are you saying my car isn't good enough?' Junya countered getting defensive.

'That's not what I meant,' Kei said sighing tiredly, 'look,' he continued, 'I'd say that with the times you're doing now, coming summer, you'll probably be the fastest on Mt Akagi's downhill. Maybe even faster than Kyosuke-san.'

'That's what I'm hoping,' Junya replied.

'Junya,' Kei said, 'are you planning on challenging Kyosuke-san to a race?'

'So what if I am?' he asked.

'You're nuts,' Kei sentenced, 'to begin with, Kyosuke-san will never accept a challenge from one of us and you know that. He only races Seisuke every now and then and only because he's his little brother. What makes you think he'll want to race you?'

'Only the fact that he owes me a re-match,' Junya said.

'He'll never accept that,' Kei insisted.

'We'll see about that,' Junya said.

'Okay, whatever,' Kei said, 'it's nearly five o'clock in the morning, I'm supposed to be up in three hours.'

'How are things back home?' Junya asked in a uncharacteristic display of interest.

'Not bad,' Kei replied, 'my father is certainly doing his bit to atone for what he did, he's even trying to figure out if my biological mother is still alive somewhere. But, you know, it's hard enough looking for someone who doesn't want to be found and it's even harder when you need to keep it all a secret so that no one knows that you're looking for.'

'That gave me a headache,' Junya complained giving Kei a smirk.

'You have no idea,' Kei replied then, as if he'd suddenly remembered, he said, 'by the way, I'm supposed to ask you something but since I know you'll just say no, I'll just tell you about it and be done with it.'

'Kei,' Junya said frowning, 'can you not speak in riddles? It's too damn confusing.'

'Sorry,' Kei replied, 'the thing is, Masato is trying to organise a group date…'

'You were right,' Junya interrupted him, 'I am definitely NOT interested.'

'I know that, idiot,' Kei said, 'he's doing it for Eiji. You know how the guy has simply shut himself out to girls.'

'And you're surprised?' Junya asked him sardonically, 'it's only normal after what that bitch put him through.'

'I agree,' Kei said, 'just don't call her that in front of him. For some reason he's still in love with her.'

'He's a moron,' Junya said mercilessly, 'I'd just forget about her and let her get on with her sorry life.'

'I wish it could be that easy for Eiji,' Kei said, 'seriously though, I hope he really gets over her soon. I can't believe I'm saying this but I do miss his playboy ways, somehow it made me feel like I was the normal one.'

'Just give him some more time,' Junya replied, 'it's only been a few weeks. Also, if I were Masato I wouldn't try to force Eiji to see other girls if he's not ready for it. Meddling too much is as bad as doing it too little.'

'That's true too,' Kei said then, he glanced at his watch again and said, 'now, seriously, I need to go.'

'Alright,' Junya said, 'thanks for your help, you're the only one I could ask.'

'Yeah,' Kei replied, 'I'm the only one who's crazy enough to help you get ready to challenge our Leader.'

'Kei…'

'Don't worry,' Kei said putting his hands up, 'I won't say anything. Nobody would believe me anyway.'

With that, he turned round and climbed into his EVO hoping that he would not fall asleep while driving back to the area of Maebashi where his family lived in an absurdly big house built in a traditional Japanese style. Behind him, he left Junya who was climbing back into his car, probably getting ready for yet another run.

'He's nuts,' he repeated talking to himself.

Later on that same day, an exhausted Junya parked his car at the usual spot at the back of the photographic studio where he had been working ever since high school. He'd been a part-timer at first but after he'd graduated he'd been allowed to work full time and just recently he'd been promoted to assistant manager and was now in charge of the staff who helped the professional photographers who worked there. One day, Junya hoped that he'd become one of them and would even open his own studio.

'Good morning Shimano-san,' the middle aged woman at the receptionist greeted him.

'Good morning,' he replied back.

'This is today's mail,' she said handing him a small pile of papers, 'and the new kid is in the waiting room.'

'New kid?' Junya asked her.

'Yes,' the receptionist said, 'the boss hired him to help during Valentine's, you know how busy we get.'

'I know,' Junya replied feeling a little disgusted. He just hated having to watch happy couples having their picture taken and the amount of people who decided to get married in Valentine's was fairly annoying too.

Entering the waiting room, he saw a mousy looking kid who seemed to be rather lost. Junya made an effort not to roll his eyes when he saw that the kid was browsing a sports newspaper which was opened at the page with the article covering the preview of the upcoming F3 season. Junya knew that the brat's picture was there together with his profile mainly because he'd already heard Kyosuke talking about that article.

'Good morning,' a shy voice said, Junya noticed that he'd been standing in front of the kid for a moment.

'Hey,' he replied, 'what's your name?'

The kid got up trying to stand as tall as possible, which wasn't much, and bowing deeply, he said:

'My name is Sakura Shinji, it's nice to meet you, sir.'

Junya had to repress a patronising smirk when he said:

'Alright, Sakura-kun, my name is Shimano Junya, I'm the assistant manager here so I'll be in charge of you.'

Junya noticed with pleasure that the kid seemed impressed.

'I'll do my best, sir,' Shinji said, 'just tell me what you need me to do.'

'Fine,' Junya replied, 'come with me and I'll show you where you can leave your bag.'

Shinji followed him downstairs where the staff room was and after the kid had picked one of the available lockers, Junya took him around the studio so that he could explain to him where everything was. He then went on to the archive and there, he told the kid to start sorting the loose folders in alphabetical order.

'When you're done,' Junya said, 'come and find me, I'll give you something else to do.'

'Thank you very much,' Shinji said smiling gratefully.

Junya left the kid to it and went to finish making the list of materials he needed to order so that the studio would have everything they'd need for the big Valentine's rush. He had barely started when he saw Shinji at the door looking lost again.

'What is it?'

'Er…' the kid hesitated, 'I've finished.'

'Already?' Junya asked eyeing him suspiciously.

'Yes, sir,' Shinji replied.

'Let's see what you've done,' Junya said and getting up from in front of his computer, he walked back to the archive and there, on top of a nearby table, he saw that the files had not only been sorted in alphabetical order but Shiji had also made sure they looked neat and tidy by getting all the papers inside each folder straightened, 'I see you're a fast worker,' he said nodding approvingly, 'and very efficient.'

'I try,' Shinji replied looking a tad overwhelmed by the sudden praise.

'Alright,' Junya said, 'do you think you'd be capable of doing the inventory for me?'

'Sure,' Shinji replied, 'I'm happy to do anything you need me to.'

'Alright,' Junya repeated, 'you know, I think we're going to get along just fine.'

By the end of the working day, Junya decided that he liked the new kid. Shinji didn't look like much but he had the sort of personality he found most congenial: quiet, hard working and without an ounce of arrogance in his body. It was because of this that Junya waited for the kid when they finished their shift that day.

'Say Sakura,' he said, 'would you like to go for a quick meal? There's a restaurant nearby that I personally recommend. It'll be my treat, of course.'

'I'd love that,' Shinji said, 'but I need to go home now or my father will get mad.'

'Ah,' Junya said trying to hide his disappointment.

'I'll try and ask him tonight to see if he'd let me go some other time,' Shinji said looking hopeful.

'Alright,' Junya replied, 'I wouldn't want you to get in trouble with your father.'

'Thank you very much,' Shinji said. He bowed and repeated, 'thank you very much for today.'

'You're welcome,' Junya said. The two walked out of the studio and only then they realised that sleet had started to fall again. Junya also noticed that Shinji was on foot, 'hey kid, how are you going to get home?'

'I'll walk,' Shinji replied, 'it's only half an hour.'

'Half an hour?' Junya asked, 'in this sleet? Do you even have an umbrella?'

'No,' Shinji replied, 'I left it home this morning.'

'Hmm…' Junya said, 'come on, since it's your first day, I'll give you a lift.'

'Seriously?' Shinji asked, his small eyes opening as wide as the went.

'Sure,' Junya said trying not to laugh, 'come on, it's this way.'

Junya felt even more proud of his car than usual when Shinji saw the beautifully kept S18. His admiration turned into nearly worship when he saw the interior, with the racing seatbelts and Recaro bucket seats as well as the many, many gizmos the car had, including the radio featured in all the Golden Arrows cars.

'Wow,' Shinji gasped when Junya turned on the NISMO-tuned engine.

'You like cars?' Junya asked him.

'Oh yes,' Shinji said, 'I love them, I'm a huge fan of motorsports, I just wish I had my license.'

'You'll get it, once you're old enough,' Junya said as he drove into the main road.

'Shimano-san,' Shinji said sounding rather insecure, 'I'm already eighteen years old.'

'Really?' Junya asked.

'Yes, sir,' Shinji replied, 'I turned eighteen in September.'

'Oh,' Junya gasped, 'why don't you have your license yet then?'

'I tried,' Shinji said, 'I even passed the theoretical test,' he added.

'What happened then?' Junya asked.

'I failed the practical exam,' he replied, 'twice.'

'Twice?' Junya exclaimed.

'Yeah,' an ashamed Shinji replied, 'I just get really nervous when I drive a car. I don't know why I just…'

'It's a matter of confidence,' Junya said, 'if you don't feel confident behind the wheel it shows.'

'I know,' Shinji said miserable, 'you sure look confident, Shimano-san. I wish I could drive as well as you do.'

Junya felt something warming inside of him but chose to say nothing.

'Shimano-san,' the kid continued talking, 'earlier I was reading about the new F3 season, did you know that one of the entries is a sixteen year old kid and that he's already won three of last year's fourteen rounds?'

'Yes, I do,' Junya replied, the warm sensation gone, replaced with the usual bile, 'I even know that kid.'

'You do?' Shinji exclaimed excitedly.

'Yeah,' Junya said, 'and he's not such a big deal, you know?'

'What do you mean?' Shinji asked.

'Can you keep a secret?' Junya asked him.

'Of course,' Shinji replied trying to sound very serious and trust worthy.

'I've raced him,' Junya replied, 'not in F3 of course, but with a proper car and guess what? I beat him.'

'You did?' Shinji asked almost beside himself with emotion.

'Yes,' Junya said, 'he's half decent with single-seaters but he's not so good with proper cars.'

'Please excuse me for saying this,' Shinji said, 'but I don't think he's a bad driver, which means that you're probably just very, very good. Good enough to be better than he is.'

'Well,' Junya said with a big smile on his face, 'you're probably right.'

The two finally arrived at Shinji's place and Junya was so happy about the conversation he'd just had with this new kid that he failed to see that Shinji's house was a little too run down and that the kid practically rushed out of the car and into his house as if he were trying to keep someone from seeing him.

A couple of days later, two days before Valentine's, Junya was showing Shinji how to enter the costumer's contact details in the computer when, as the kid sat on the chair, Junya went to stand behind him and, looking down on his neck, he saw that the kid had a rather large bruise right next to the part of the neck which connected to the shoulder.

'Sakura,' he said pointing at it with his index finger, 'what's that?'

'Oh,' Shinji said looking suddenly embarrassed, 'I fell.'

'You fell?' a sceptical Junya said, 'how?'

'I…I just fell,' Shinji said clearly refusing to elaborate.

'Alright,' Junya humoured him.

The kid spent the rest of the day working in complete silence which he only broke to thank the staff for their hard work before he headed home leaving as quickly as he could. Too quickly in fact because, when Junya went to the staff room some twenty minutes later, he saw that in his haste to leave, Shinji had left his bag on the floor by his locker. Picking it up, he decided to drive back to Shinji's place and give it back to the kid.

Not remembering the way by heart, Junya set the navigator to trace the last followed routes and, soon, he had the one he wanted set as the itinerary. He then drove the whole distance without, unfortunately, seeing the kid. He had just parked his car at roughly the same spot as the previous time when even with the doors locked, he heard the voice of a drunken man shouting from the inside of a very run down house.

To his surprise, Junya saw the door of that house opening it and, out of it, he saw Shinji manhandled by a sturdy, unkempt looking guy who had obviously had way too much to drink. Junya was about to get out of the car to help Shinji when he saw the kid running down the stairs apologising profusely as he did so. Even before Junya could find he handle to open the door, Shinji was already running down the street. Luckily, Junya was also a fast runner so, taking Shinji's bag with him, he got out of the car, locking it after him and then rushed in the same direction. Even with the kid's advantage, Junya still managed to catch him within just a handful of seconds. Junya grabbed him by his arm to get him to stop and to turn him around.

The kid was crying.

'Sakura,' Junya started.

'Shimano-san,' Shinji sobbed, he tried to re-compose himself by drying his cheeks with the back of his hand.

'What was that back there?' Junya asked pointing towards the direction where Shinji's house was.

'Nothing,' the kid lied, 'my father's a bit nervous today.'

'Only today?' Junya asked him.

'Yeah,' Shinji said, 'he's stressed because he can't find work, but he's not…'

'Shinji,' Junya interrupted him, 'you don't need to justify him. If he's hurting you…'

'No!' Shinji exclaimed looking frightened, 'he's not that bad it's just today, I swear, just today.'

'And your neck?' Junya asked him.

'I told you,' Shinji replied, 'I fell…'

'Don't give me that bullshit,' Junya exclaimed, 'that's not something you can do to yourself!'

'Please,' Shinji begged, 'Shimano-san, please, my father…he's…it's okay, I'm okay.'

'No you're not,' Junya insisted, 'you need to come with me to the police and you need to report him.'

'Report him?' Shinji asked now looking positively freaked out, 'I can't report my own father! He's…he's the only family I have!', Junya wanted to say something to that but Shinji added, 'please, don't tell anyone, sir.'

Junya considered his options but, seeing as there was nothing he could do for the time being, he nodded.

'Alright,' he said, 'but you need to get him to stop drinking and if he hits you again...'

'He won't,' Shinji promised, 'I'll ask him to stop drinking.'

'Alright,' Junya repeated, then, he placed the bag he was carrying in Shinji's hands, 'here, this is yours.'

'Oh,' the kid said looking relieved, 'I thought I had lost it. My father was so mad about it…'

Junya preferred not to comment on that. Instead, he nodded and walked with the kid back to his house. After Shinji had thanked him a million times for taking the trouble of bringing him his bag, Junya had to watch him re-enter the house he shared with his violent and drunkard of a father feeling a pang of guilt.

That same evening, before he drove to Mt Akagi, he called his cousin.

'Hello?' Kazuya replied.

'Hey,' Junya said, 'can you talk?'

'I'm doing it now, aren't I?' Kazuya replied.

'Funny,' Junya replied sarcastically, 'listen, there's something I need to ask you.'

'Go ahead,' Kazuya replied.

'Hypothetically speaking,' Junya started, 'if you knew that someone you know is being mistreated by his parent, would there be anything you could do from a legal point of view to make sure the parent stopped?'

Kazuya took a few moments to reply.

'Well,' he said, 'the law is very clear when it comes to minors being mistreated…er…I take this hypothesis of yours involves someone underage, right?'

'Not really,' Junya replied, 'the kid in the hypothesis…'

'Let's be clear Junya,' Kazuya stopped him, 'and since this isn't a hypothesis, let's just call things by their names.'

'Fine,' Junya said, 'there's this new kid at work, he's eighteen and I'm pretty sure his father beats him up.'

'Wow,' Kazuya gasped and, for once, he was serious when he said, 'well, if he's eighteen, even though by law you're only an adult when you turn twenty, he's old enough to become emancipated. The only problem is that unless he's the one who reports his father to the police, the law can't touch the bastard.'

'What if I report him?' Junya asked him.

'Do you have any evidence?' Kazuya asked back.

'What do you mean?'

'I don't know,' Kazuya said, 'do you have any pictures which show bruises or cuts or something similar?'

'No, of course not,' Junya said, 'but I saw his father today, he was manhandling him and…'

'Junya,' Kazuya stopped him, 'without pictures or without this kid's testimony to corroborate what you're reporting the police can do nothing. The most they'll do if you report him is go and check on the guy. He'll deny everything and then that kid will have hell because of you. Trust me, if you want to help the kid, get pictures or convince him to go to the police himself.'

'He'll never do that,' Junya complained, 'he said his father's the only family he has.'

'In that case,' Kazuya said, 'it's tough luck my dear cousin. I know it's cruel but there's nothing worse than to try and help someone who doesn't want to be helped. If that kid wants out of this nasty situation, he needs to work for it.'

'I didn't know you were this cynical,' Junya commented.

'It's not being cynical,' Kazuya said, 'it's being realistic. If you studied law like I do you'd understand.'

Soon after the two cousins had ended their conversation, Junya walked out of his apartment and made his way back to his car, sitting behind the wheel for a long time thinking about what he could do to help the kid.

Feeling frustrated that Kazuya was right and that unless Shinji did something himself nothing would ever change for the kid, Junya decided to go up to Mt Akagi so that he could do a few runs, hoping that the mountain would help him get an inspiration. Alas, after covering the downhill quite a few times, Junya was as clueless as he'd been before getting in the car and, feeling even more frustrated, he went back home.

The following morning, he got up earlier than usual and since he didn't have to go to the studio until nine, he decided to do some housework instead. He then went to the mini market at the end of the road and got a few ingredients he needed for the evening's meal. Placing them in the fridge, he turned the television on and started watching the morning news.

At twenty to nine, he got back in his car and drove to the studio, determined to talk to Shinji one more time as soon as the kid came in for his afternoon shift. Unfortunately, Shinji didn't come in at the time he was supposed to. Nor did he an hour later, or another hour after that. In fact, the kid failed to show up at all.

'Excuse me,' he said to the receptionist, 'did Sakura call in sick or something?'

'No,' the woman replied, 'but Shimano-san, you know how unreliable high school kids are.'

'I wasn't unreliable when I was in high school,' he pointed out a little more dryly than he intended.

'Oh,' the receptionist said, 'I didn't mean to be rude, Shimano-san.'

Ignoring the woman, Junya went back to his office to get Shinji's file so that he could find out his home number. He saw that there wasn't one, instead, the kid had just listed his school's contact details and nothing more. Checking his watch, he saw that it was too late to call the school and, with a frustrated sigh, he just decided to wait until the end of his shift to go and figure out what had happened to the kid.

At exactly five seconds to seven and for the first time in his whole working life, Junya left the studio without working a single minute of overtime. Hurrying out of the building, he climbed into his car and drove like a maniac to Shinji's place. There, he parked the car and feeling uneasy with trepidation, he got out of the car and climbed the short flight of stairs, ready to ring the bell. To his shock, the house didn't have one so he decided to use his fist to knock.

And he waited. And waited. And then he knocked again.

Three attempts later, he heard someone coming into what he supposed was the house's reception area and, once again, Junya had the unpleasant experience of seeing the man who was Shinji's father. Once again, the man was completely drunk and was wearing a torn jumper together with the dirtiest pair of trousers Junya had seen in his whole life. Trying to ignore the stink from the alcohol, the sweat and the cigarettes, he said:

'Good evening, I'm Shimano, I'm the assistant manager at the place where your son works.'

'That ungrateful brat isn't home,' the man slurred in an ugly way.

'Where may I find him?' Junya asked forcing himself to be polite.

'How am I supposed to know?' the man asked him, 'he took off last night and I haven't seen him since.'

Junya felt his eyebrows shoot up in shock and it was a miracle if he managed to remain calm to say:

'And you haven't called the police?'

'Why?' the man asked, 'he's not my problem anymore.'

With that and without waiting for Junya's response, he just closed the house's door on Junya's face. He remained standing there for a good few seconds before he realised what had happened. It took him a handful of seconds longer to figure out what he had to do next: he had to find Shinji, no matter what.

Getting back in his car, Junya started thinking of places where the kid could have gone to. It was dark and it was very cold that evening. He didn't know if Shinji had any friends he could go to in case of need but, just in case, he decided that he would try calling the school after all. Maybe one of the teachers or the school's janitor would be there working overtime.

'Maebashi Commercial High School, how may I help?' a man's voice replied.

'Er…' Junya hesitated, 'my name is Shimano Junya, one of your students works part time at my studio. He didn't come in to work today and I'm trying to find out if one of his friends may know where he is.'

'What's the name of the student?' the man said.

'Sakura Shinji,' Junya replied.

'Oh, Sakura-kun,' the teacher said, 'I know that kid, he used to be in my class in his first year.'

'Sir, do you know if any of his friends…'

'I'm sorry to say this,' the man said, 'but Sakura-kun has never been in very good terms with his classmates, he's always been very reserved and has never opened up to anyone here. It seems like his father is very strict.'

'I see…'

'Shimano-san,' the man said, 'have you tried calling his father?'

'Yes I did,' Junya said and with a diplomacy which would make Kazuya proud, he said, 'unfortunately, he wasn't of any help.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' the man said, 'I'll talk to his teacher tomorrow to see if he knows something.'

'That's great help, thanks,' Junya said before hanging up.

He couldn't believe it. The poor kid didn't have anyone he could call his friend and on top of that, he had a terrible excuse of a human being as father. More determined than ever to find him, Junya started driving around the immediate perimeter where the kid's house was, trying to see if he could spot him somewhere but after nearly two hours of searching, he failed to find him.

He was about to park his car so that he could continue on foot when, driving along a kid's playground, he saw a small figure hiding inside one of those coloured concrete tubes he used to love playing with as a kid. Seeing that there was no traffic on that small street, he stopped the S18 and, getting out of it, he started walking towards the tube when he heard some heavy breathing.

'Sakura, is that you?' he said.

The breathing rate increased, this time accompanied by a weak moaning. That made him rush to one end of the tube and, using the backlight of his mobile phone as illumination, he saw him: bloodied up, Shinji was gingerly holding an arm, probably broken, while he fought to stay awake.

'Oh Sakura,' Junya said, 'what has that bastard done to you?'

_To be continued…_


	43. Chapter Forty Two

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty Two_

With great difficulty Junya got Shinji out of the concrete tube doing his best not to hurt the poor kid more than he already was. A brief touch of his palm against the kid's sweaty forehead told Junya that Shinji was running a very high temperature and that his level of consciousness made it impossible for him to walk to the car by himself. For this reason Junya decided to take him in his arms, thanking his lucky star that the kid's frame was slight and that he didn't weight anywhere near as much as the average eighteen year old.

'Shimano-san?' Shinji muttered feebly.

'Shush,' Junya replied.

Walking to the passenger's side of his S18, he somehow managed to get the door open and trying to be as gentle as possible, he placed Shinji on the bucket seat, damning the thing for being so inadequate to carry injured people. He didn't even bother fastening the racing seatbelt because it would have been impossible to get the straps over Shinji's shoulders, not when he was still holding onto his arm as if he were afraid it would fall off. Junya's stomach folded onto itself when he took a good look at Shinji's face using the car's inside lights: both of his eyes and his left cheek were badly bruised and he had tree different cuts on his lips.

He didn't even want to think of what the rest of the kid's body looked like. Instead, he just climbed behind the wheel and, driving as fast as possible, he made it to the Accident and Emergency entrance of the Arakawa Hospital less than ten minutes later. There, he was met by two of the hospital's orderlies, one of them was pushing an empty wheelchair. Junya got out of the car and opened the passenger's door finding that at some point during the trip Shinji had finally passed out. Without pausing to ask questions, the two men pushed Junya out of the way and just as they had Shinji seated on the wheelchair a doctor appeared.

'What do we have here?' the man asked to the two orderlies while they wheeled Shinji inside.

'Multiple contusions,' one of them, the older looking one replied, 'and I think a fractured arm.'

'Did you guys get in a fight?' the doctor asked Junya.

'No,' he replied while trying to keep up with the fast pace imposed by the orderlies, 'his father did that.'

'His father?' the doctor asked sounding surprised, 'are you sure about that?'

'Yes, I'm sure,' Junya replied dryly.

'Did you witness it yourself?' the doctor asked.

'No, I didn't, but…'

'Then I wouldn't make such a grave accusation if I were you,' the doctor had the cheek to say.

'Are you a lawyer or a damn doctor?' Junya asked using a very rude tone of voice.

'I'm a doctor,' the man replied nevertheless.

'Then do your freaking job and help him,' Junya replied, 'we'll let the police decide if I'm lying or not.'

Thankfully the doctor was smart and experienced enough not to argue with someone who was so visibly angry and, instead, he ordered to the two orderlies to take Shinji beyond a big white door, making only a small gesture to Junya which told him that he had to wait there. For once, Junya did what he was told.

Nearly an hour and a half later and after Junya had ran out of ways to try and make standing up a less uncomfortable experience, he saw another doctor, this time female, coming out of the doors and walking towards him with a very serious expression on her aged face. She didn't even try to smile when she said:

'Are you the person who brought that kid in?'

'Yes, Doctor…' he stopped to check her name tag, 'Aiba.'

'I take you're not a relative,' Doctor Aiba said.

'No, I'm not,' Junya said, 'how is he doing?'

'Not well,' the doctor replied clearly refusing to give out any details, 'I'll need to speak to a relative…'

'Well,' Junya's patience was running low again, 'that's going to be impossible.'

'Why?' Doctor Aiba asked.

'Because the only relative that kid has is his father and he's the one who's done that to him,' Junya said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, 'do you still need to speak to a relative?'

The doctor had the decency to look a little ashamed hearing that and, softening her tone a little, she said:

'I probably don't.'

'Good,' Junya said, 'now, how is he?'

'The radius of his left arm is broken,' Doctor Aiba started, 'he also has a couple of fractured ribs and several contusions. He also has a mild concussion and numerous cuts and bruises. He also presents the first stages of pneumonia and right now we're giving him antibiotics and antipyretics to fight the infection and the fever.'

'Is he going to be alright?' Junya asked feeling a brand new wave of anger towards Shinji's father.

'Eventually,' the doctor replied, 'but it's going to take a while and there might be long lasting effects.'

'What do you mean?' Junya asked.

'Well,' Doctor Aiba said, 'if what you said it's true and his father did that to him, the kid's going to suffer a major mental trauma. We'll probably involve Social Services so that they send someone to speak to him.'

'Like a psychologist or something like that?' Junya asked.

'Yes,' Doctor Aiba said, 'we usually leave it to Social Services to decide after they study the case.'

'They'll get him away from his father, won't they?' Junya asked her.

'I don't know,' Doctor Aiba said, 'it depends on many factors.'

'But…'

'We also need to take the boy's opinion into consideration,' she interrupted him, 'I take you know his name?'

'Of course,' Junya replied.

'Brilliant,' Doctor Aiba said, 'because right now we need to take care of the paperwork so, if you please…

'Wait,' Junya said, 'can I see him?'

'Not now,' Doctor Aiba replied, 'since you're not a relative I'm going to need clearance from my superiors.'

'What?' Junya said, 'but I'm the one who's brought him here…'

'You're still not a relative,' the doctor replied, 'now, if you could please follow me.'

Junya walked with Doctor Aiba to the admissions desk where they found a nurse in her early twenties. Soon, he found himself answering all sorts of questions about Shinji and that made him realise just how little he knew about the guy: nothing other than his name and surname, address, age and the school he attended.

'Do you have his insurance details?' the nurse asked him.

'No,' Junya replied.

'Oh,' the nurse said, 'that's going to be a problem…'

Junya didn't even grace her with an answer, instead, he started worrying about who would pay for the hospital bill. Somehow, he doubted Shinji's father would have a proper health coverage and even if he did, he seriously doubted the man would be willing to help his son, not after the appalling behaviour he'd shown earlier on. He started doing some mental calculations to see if he could somehow afford paying for them...

'Sir?' the nurse called him taking him out of his reverie.

'How much are the bills going to be?' he asked her.

'I don't know that, yet,' she replied, 'but…'

Just then, Junya's mobile phone started ringing.

'Sir,' the nurse admonished him, 'mobile phones aren't allowed in…'

Junya ignored her while he checked the caller ID.

It was Kei.

Rushing outside doing his best to bear the freezing cold weather Junya pressed the button to answer the call.

'Hello,' he said.

'Hey,' Kei replied, 'listen, I wanted to know if you're going to come out to practice tonight.'

'I don't think so,' Junya replied, 'something's come up.'

'Something?' Kei asked and for the following two minutes he listened to Junya's explanation then, after a short pause during which he tried to find the right words, he said, 'are you sure you want to get involved?'

'What do you mean?' Junya asked.

'Well,' Kei replied, 'it looks to me like you're meddling too much, I mean, it really isn't any of your business.'

'Really?' Junya said angrily, 'what am I supposed to do? Leave him to his father so that the next time he beats him to death? Because that's what's going to happen if no one does anything to help that kid.'

'I know that,' Kei said, 'I'm just saying that…'

'I don't care what you're saying,' Junya interrupted him brusquely, 'I'm can't just sit there and do nothing.'

With that he pressed the button to finish the call and he then spent the next few minutes trying to decide what to do. He was so deep in thought he didn't even notice the frosty weather and it wasn't until Doctor Aiba came out looking for him that he realised that his nose and ears had started going numb with cold.

'Excuse me,' the doctor said, 'Sakura-kun has just woken up and it seems that he wants to speak to you.'

Junya felt surprised by that but recovering fast, he followed the doctor back inside the building and all the way to one of the rooms of the Accident and Emergency Department. Shinji occupied one of the four beds there while the rest were empty which made the kid's loneliness all the more poignantly obvious. Junya tried to pay as little attention as possible to the cast on Shinji's left arm and the many bandages covering him.

'Hey,' he said softly while Doctor Aiba closed the door to give them some privacy.

'Shimano-san,' Shinji mumbled weakly.

'Shush,' Junya said, 'don't talk.'

'I need to tell you something,' the kid muttered making a visible effort.

'It can wait,' Junya said, 'we'll talk all you want once you're stronger.'

'No,' Shinji insisted, 'it's important.'

'Alright,' he gave in, 'what is it?'

'I wanted to thank you…' he started.

'Sakura..'

'…and to ask you a favour,' Shinji continued.

'What do you need?' Junya asked.

'Please don't call the police,' the kid finally asked sounding very urgent.

'What?'

'Please,' Shinji repeated and the effort was making him even weaker, 'no police, I…'

'Sakura,' Junya interrupted him, 'you need to report this to the police. Look at what he's done to you!'

'No,' Shinji said, 'no police.'

'Sakura…'

'It was my fault,' Shinji said, his voice was now nothing but a whisper.

'How could this be your fault?' a bewildered Junya asked.

'Dad's right,' Shinji replied, 'I had no right to ask him to stop drinking, not after what I did to Mum.'

'What did you do to your mother?' Junya asked.

'She died because of me,' Shinji replied, 'if I hadn't asked her to go to the festival. She got run over by a car when I was ten. She was coming to see me in a school play and…' a fit of cough made it impossible for him to continue but he'd said enough for Junya to get the picture and, if possible, he felt even sorrier for the kid.

'I understand,' Junya said, 'but you can't let your father get away with what he's doing to you.'

'No…police…' Shinji insisted in between one cough and another, 'please…no…police.'

He was beginning to get really upset and that's the only reason why Junya decided to give in.

'Alright,' he said, 'I won't call the police, just concentrate on getting better, okay?'

Shinji nodded weakly before his eyelids started closing over his eyes. An instant later, the kid fell asleep.

With a frustrated sigh, Junya glanced at Shinji one last time before leaving the room as quietly as possible and before he could be stopped by anyone, he went to find his car and, climbing into it, he started driving back to his apartment when, changing his mind, he decided to drive towards the big house where his cousin lived and only when he saw that all the lights inside the house were turned off he realised that it was nearly two o'clock in the morning. Because of that, he decided to park the car and use his mobile to call Kazuya.

'If you're not a really sexy chick, I'm hanging up,' he heard his cousin mumble sleepily.

'Sorry to disappoint you,' Junya replied, 'but I need to talk to you.'

'Junya,' Kazuya complained, 'what the hell…it's…'

'Five to two in the morning,' Junya said, 'but I really need to speak to you.'

'And of course, it can't wait until the morning so you had to call me in the middle of the night,' Kazuya said.

'Well,' Junya said, 'I've called you because I'm parked outside your house and I've seen that all the lights are turned off so I figured you and your parents must be sleeping.'

'Funny that,' Kazuya said sarcastically then, sounding surprised, he asked, 'wait, what did you just say?'

'I'm parked outside your house,' Junya repeated calmly.

'Oh shit,' Kazuya said now sounding definitely awake, 'it must be bad.'

'It is,' Junya confirmed, 'I just took that kid I told you about to the Arakawa Hospital. His father has broken several of his bones and he is in a really bad place right now. However, he doesn't want me to report it to the police so, I need to know if there's anything else…'

'Junya,' Kazuya interrupted him, 'I know that this isn't what you want to hear but, to be honest, he's been pretty specific. If he doesn't want you to talk to the police then you have to respect his wishes. Like I…'

'What am I supposed to do then?' Junya asked sounding angry, 'just let that bastard kill him?'

'No,' Kazuya replied trying to be patient, 'what you need to do is seek an alternative. Look, I'm going to think of a way to help that kid but, right now, you need to go to bed and go to work tomorrow. It's Valentine's and I know how busy your studio gets so you'll have your hands full all day long, okay?'

'So,' Junya said, 'you're expecting me to just go to work as if nothing had happened?'

'Yes,' Kazuya replied, 'that's exactly what you need to do. Please, just trust me, can you do that?'

He refused to reply.

'Junya,' Kazuya insisted, 'I know you want to help that kid and so do I, believe me, we just need to be very careful. To begin with, we need to convince him that he needs to get help for both himself and his father.'

'But…'

'Don't worry,' Kazuya said, 'I think I know just the man who can do that.'

Before Junya could ask any questions, Kazuya ended the call and when Junya tried to call him back, he saw that his cousin had turned the phone off. Junya damned his cousin for knowing him so well and for being so cunning. Ultimately, he decided that if there was one person in the world he could trust, that was his cousin.

Kazuya had many flaws but one of his biggest gifts was how resourceful he was.

It was only because of this that Junya accepted giving Kazuya a few hours to see what the guy would come up with. In the mean time and seeing how it would be impossible for him to go to sleep, Junya decided to go to Mt Akagi so that he could do a few runs but when he made it there, he saw Kei's white Mitsubishi EVO X parked by the vending machines. Kei himself was sitting inside his car drinking from a can but seeing Junya's S18, he placed it into his car's holder and, getting out of his car, he waited until Junya did the same.

'I knew you'd come here,' Kei said.

'How did you…'

'You were fairly angry earlier,' Kei explained, 'and I doubted they'd let you stay in the hospital all night.'

'What were you going to do?' Junya asked him, 'wait for me all night long?'

'Not really,' Kei replied shrugging his broad shoulders, 'I was going to leave as soon as I finished my drink.'

'How lucky of me,' Junya said sarcastically.

'It is,' Kei replied using a flat tone of voice, 'because there's something I wanted to tell you in person.'

'What is it?' Junya asked him.

'Leave that kid alone,' Kei said.

'What?' Junya asked starting to get mad again.

'Look,' Kei said, 'you said it yourself, meddling too much is as bad as doing it too little. Well, I do think you're meddling way too much. That kid's in trouble, no one will argue that but, let's face it, you're not…'

'I have news for you,' Junya said icily, 'he doesn't want me to call the police, it looks like he's going to let his father get away with what he's done. For the life of me, I can't understand the way that kid's mind works.'

'I can,' Kei countered, 'do you have any idea of what it's like being all by yourself?'

'Of course I do,' Junya replied, 'I moved out from my parents' house right after I graduated.'

'That's not the same thing,' Kei said, 'you did that voluntarily and you knew that if anything went wrong, you would still have somewhere to go. You knew that if you screwed up, your parents would still take you in.'

'Er…'

'You have no idea of what it feels like not having any family you can rely on,' Kei said, 'I can't speak for that kid but I can speak for myself and despite what my father and I have been through, I can't deny the fact that he's the only father I have. It's taken me a really long time to realise that I have to move past our differences and solve our problems because if I don't do that I will lose my family forever. It felt very lonely when I didn't have anyone I could call family and I'm sure that kid feels the same way I did.'

'But…'

'Look,' Kei said, 'I'm not trying to justify what his father's done to him, it's wrong and his father should be punished for it but you don't have the right to decide. Let that kid make his own choices, okay?'

'Alright,' Junya agreed only half-heartedly, 'I just feel so powerless, I wish there was something I could do.'

'There is,' Kei countered, 'do you know the thing which saved me when I was in trouble?'

'Er…' he hesitated, 'your friends?'

'Exactly,' Kei replied, 'if you really want to do something for that kid, let him know that he can count on you. Because he can count on you, can't he?'

'Of course he can,' Junya said firmly.

'Then that's more than enough,' Kei sentenced then, he smirked and said, 'now, since we're already here…'

Junya smirked back and said: 'I'll beat you to the top.'

At mid-morning and while Junya was busy working, the nurse had just finished injecting a new dose of antibiotics on Shinji's IV drip when the kid saw the door opening again and a tall, middle-aged and imposing looking doctor entered the room with a small parcel in his hand and a reassuring smile on his face.

'Hello,' the doctor said, 'my name is Takahashi Ryosuke, I'm the co-owner of this hospital.'

'Hello,' was all Shinji was able to say.

'Do you mind if I take a seat?' the doctor asked him pointing at a chair which was placed right next to Shinji's bed, the teenager shook his head and the doctor sat down and said, 'you're probably asking yourself the reason why the co-owner of this hospital is here to see you, am I right?'

'Yes, sir,' Shinji replied.

'Well,' Doctor Takahashi said, 'it's a long story but essentially, I learned that you're friends with a friend of my two sons and that this friend of yours is very worried about a certain situation you have with your father.'

'Sir, I…'

'Please hear me out,' the doctor said and Shinji would have never dreamed to interrupt him again, 'I think I understand the reason why you don't want to report your father. Now, if you were under eighteen, the hospital would have no choice but to report what's happened to you to the police but, seeing as you are eighteen, we need to let you decide whether you'll press charges against your father or not. That said, I think that you need to know several things before you make any decision and that's what I'm here for.'

Shinji blinked once as if he were begging the doctor to go ahead.

'Okay,' Doctor Takahashi continued, 'from what I know, this is not the first time your father hits you, this means that he will probably do it again if he has the chance. What we have here is a clear case of someone who needs help, professional help. I know this will sound harsh to you but, right now, you can't do anything for him because you need to focus on getting better yourself. What I can suggest is that you let Social Services handle your situation. They'll get in touch with your father and persuade him to get the sort of help he needs to stop drinking. As for you, since you're eighteen, you can't be placed into one of their homes however, you could apply for emancipation and then you could live by yourself until your father gets better.'

'But…'

'You should be graduating from high school next month, right?'

'Yes, sir,' Shinji replied.

'It'll take you a while to fully recover but, providing someone from your school brings you the notes and that you don't miss any exams, I think you should be able to get your diploma, then you could find yourself a full time job and somewhere else to live. During that time Social Services will look after your father and maybe one day you two will be able to live together as a family.'

'Sir,' Shinji said, 'I…'

'You don't need to make that decision now,' Doctor Takahashi interrupted him, 'just think about it, okay?'

'Yes, sir,' he said.

'Okay,' the doctor said then, placing the small parcel onto the bedside table, he smiled again and said, 'this is from Nurse Shima, she asked me if it was okay to give it to you. I thought it'd cheer you up so I said yes.'

Shinji looked at the parcel and to his surprise, he saw that it was a small chocolate box and, by the time he managed to react, Doctor Takahashi was at the door. Shinji tried to gather all the energy he needed to speak when the doctor turned round and said:

'Since your treatment will be covered with the hospital's funds, I don't want you to worry about it, okay?'

Too stunned for words, Shinji could only nod.

The kid was still speechless when Junya came to see him later on that day. He entered the room with another guy who looked to be around his age, that guy smiled at him and was the first one to speak:

'Hi, I take you're the famous Sakura Shinji, my name is Kameyama Kazuya and I'm Junya's cousin.'

'Hello,' a blushing Shinji mumbled.

'How are you feeling?' Junya asked him.

'So, so,' Shinji said then, mustering all his courage, he said, 'thanks for…everything.'

'You're welcome,' Junya said.

'You saw Doctor Takahashi earlier, didn't you?' Kazuya asked him.

'Yes,' Shinji replied, 'and I've been doing some thinking...'

'What a coincidence,' Junya interrupted him, 'because I have a proposition for you.'

Both Shinji and Kazuya looked at him making it obvious to Shinji that this came as a surprise to Kazuya too.

'What would you say,' Junya continued, 'if I asked you to move in with me?'

For the second time that day, Shinji lost his ability to speak.

'It's just a temporary solution,' Junya explained, 'but I think it's the best you can do. I'll even talk to the boss to see if he can hire you full time as soon as you graduate. This way you'll be able to apply for emancipation even before you get discharged from the hospital. So, what do you think? You like the idea?'

Shinji just nodded finding himself incapable of forming the single syllable he needed to say.

'Alright,' Junya said, 'it's settled then.'

Shortly after, the two cousins left the room and Kazuya finally recovered his own ability to speak.

'Junya,' he whispered, 'you do realise what you've just done, right?'

'More or less,' Junya replied sounding a little too calm.

'Good,' Kazuya said, 'because I think you've just got in way over your head.'

'Maybe,' Junya replied, 'or maybe not.'

_To be continued…_


	44. Chapter Forty Three

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty Three_

On the first Saturday evening of March, Junya decided to take Shinji to the first official gathering of the Golden Arrows of the new year. The excuse was to celebrate once again that, four days before, Seisuke had turned nineteen, in addition to that and for the first time in months Mt Akagi's pass was finally snow and ice free. Grabbing the keys to his S18, he couldn't help but to notice that Shinji had difficulties trying to put his jacket on.

'Here,' Junya said, 'let me help you.'

As usual, Shinji did exactly what he was told and that made Junya frown a little. The kid had spent nearly two weeks at the hospital and after he'd been reassured that his father would not be sent to prison and he had looked even more relieved when, a few days ago and after quite a lot of unsuccessful attempts, an employee from Social Services had informed him that his father had finally accepted being sent to a community where they would work on his many issues, starting with his alcohol-induced violence.

Shinji had moved in Junya's apartment less than a week ago and it soon became obvious to Junya that the kid was exceedingly good at making himself invisible. A saddened Junya guessed it was due to many years of practice both at home as well as at school and that it would take a very long time for Shinji to feel safe enough to just be himself. It still were early days and Junya knew that he needed to be very patient.

'Alright,' he said gently, 'are you ready to go?'

'Yes,' Shinji replied then, lowering his voice a little, he said, 'are you sure it's okay for me to come?'

'Of course,' Junya said, 'why wouldn't it be?'

'Well,' Shinji replied, 'I'm not a member of the team and…'

'You're with me,' Junya interrupted him, 'and I am a member of the team so don't worry about it, okay?'

'Yes, sir,' Shinji said.

A few moments later they were both onboard Junya's S18 and at around ten minutes to eleven they reached the base of Mt Akagi's pass. At the usual parking area by the now closed family restaurant they saw four cars belonging to the Golden Arrows, including the two Mazda RZ-1s and Kazuya's red Civic Type-R GD4.

'Is Kameyama-san here?' Shinji asked.

'Of course,' Junya replied, 'Kazuya is a member of the team too.'

'Cool,' Shinji said sounding a little happy.

'Come on,' Junya said, 'I'll introduce you to the rest of them.'

Parking his Nissan next to Kizuna's 350Z, Junya went to help Shinji get out of the car, only to find that the kid had already managed to open the door and was now climbing out of the bucket seat. Just then, Kazuya arrived accompanied by the Takahashi brothers, Kizuna and, to Junya's disgust, the brat and his girlfriend.

'Hi,' Kazuya said obviously talking to Shinji, 'how are you doing?'

'I'm okay,' Shinji replied feeling suddenly shy.

'I'm glad to hear that,' Kyosuke said.

Before anyone else could add anything, Junya decided to take charge of the situation.

'Shinji,' he said, 'you already know my cousin Kazuya,' the kid nodded, 'this person here is our team leader Takahashi Kyosuke and this one is his younger brother Seisuke. Her name is Kizuna, she comes from America and is Kyosuke's girlfriend.'

'Oh,' Shinji gasped and that made Kizuna give him an almost motherly smile.

'Kyosuke and Seisuke are the sons of Doctor Takahashi,' Junya explained.

'Yes,' Shinji simply said then, he bowed towards the two brothers and said, 'I'm in your father's debt.'

'Don't be silly,' Seisuke said, 'he was just doing his job, besides, he said you were a very good patient.'

Shinji became so flustered he failed to notice that he had not been introduced to the other two people there.

'Hi,' Akito said putting his hand forward, 'I'm Fujiwara Akito and this is my girlfriend Ryoko.'

'Wow,' an astonished Shinji gasped. He forgot all about Akito's hand and, switching his glance from him to Junya, he was in awe when he said, 'you never told me that Fujiwara-kun was a member of your street racing team.'

'That's because he's not,' Junya replied a little too dryly.

'But then…'

'I'm too young to join in,' Akito explained putting his hand down feeling a little stupid, 'how old are you?'

'I'm eighteen,' Shinji replied staring at him as if he couldn't believe his own eyes.

'Do you have your license yet?' Akito asked him.

'No, I…'

'He'll be getting it very soon,' Junya interrupted him, 'and when that happens I'll get him a car.'

'Junya-san!' Shinji exclaimed looking both shocked and in awe at the prospect.

'So,' Junya continued this time glancing at Kyosuke and using a slightly challenging tone of voice, he asked him, 'once he has a car, there shouldn't be any reason why Shinji can't join the Golden Arrows, is there?'

'Wha-…'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied coolly, 'but he'll have to train a bit. We want him to be able to keep up with us.'

'Naturally,' Junya said taking the hint, 'I'll help him practice myself.'

'Kyosuke…' Akito started.

'And I'll need to see him in action before we let him join,' Kyosuke finished.

'Sure,' Junya said and with immense satisfaction, he saw Akito forcing himself to keep quiet.

The arrival of the rest of the team interrupted their increasingly awkward conversation and soon enough, Shinji found himself shaking hands with Masato, Izawa, Eiji, Kei, Shuji and Tatsuya. Shige and Yuta were the last to arrive, apparently they had been held up by some sort of webcast on the latest UFO sightings. To Junya's utmost horror, it seemed like both of the Golden Arrows resident weirdoes took an instant liking for Shinji and soon the poor kid found himself showered with all sorts of questions, some of them rather scary.

'Have you ever seen a UFO?' Shige asked him.

Shinji's eyes went wide.

'What's your star sign?' Yuta asked him.

'Er…' Shinji hesitated, 'I don't know…'

'When is your birthday?' Shige asked.

'Er…September 3rd,' Shinji replied almost making it sound like a question.

'Oh,' Yuta exclaimed happily, 'you're a Virgo.'

'He's a Virgo,' Shige repeated only that he didn't look quite so enthusiastic about it.

'Is that a bad thing?' Shinji dared to ask.

'No,' Yuta replied giving him a reassuring smile, 'it's just that Shige-chan's a Libra.'

'Ah,' an obviously lost Shinji said. He felt a wave of relief when he saw Junya coming to his rescue.

'Hey,' he warned him, 'those two, it's better if you don't listen to them too much.'

'That's not very nice,' Yuta complained.

'Let's get you away from them,' Junya said plainly ignoring Yuta.

Shinji just followed him and, once they were out of hearing range, he said:

'Can I ask you something?'

'Of course,' Junya said.

'That's not his real hair colour, is it?' Shinji asked indicating Shige's bright white spikes.

'I don't think so,' Junya replied with a smirk, 'listen, I'm going to go on a run up Mt Akagi, I would take you with me but,' he stopped to look at Shinji's left arm which still had its cast on, 'I don't think it's a good idea.'

'No, of course not,' Shinji agreed.

'Are you going to be okay here on your own?' Junya asked him.

'Yes, of course,' Shinji hurried to say, 'please don't worry about me.'

Glancing at him for a short while, Junya nodded once and then he made his way to the S18. At the same time, Kei and Eiji had also climbed into their own cars and soon all three of them started making their way up the mountain pass. Shinji took a moment to look around himself feeling in awe at the beautiful machines that belonged to the Golden Arrows. He was still standing there when Kazuya walked up to him and said:

'Having fun?'

'Of course,' Shinji replied, 'I'm…I don't know what to say.'

'That's alright,' Kazuya said then, using a studied casual tone, he asked, 'how is living with my cousin?'

'It's great,' Shinji replied, 'Junya-san is an amazing person. I've never met anyone like him before.'

'Yeah,' Kazuya said with a soft chuckle, 'neither have I,' then, he added, 'he's a hard person to understand.'

'Really?' Shinji asked sounding unsure, 'I think he's very straightforward. I might be speaking too much but he's always very confident and he always knows what he wants and how to get it. I wish I was like that.'

'That's interesting,' Kazuya said, he was going to add something when Seisuke called him, 'I'll be right back.'

'Sure,' Shinji replied.

He spent the rest of the evening walking around as discreetly as possible to busy admiring the cars to think about trying to socialise. Not that he would have known where to start. The Golden Arrows seemed to be a group of close friends and watching them interact with each other, laughing and talking about random stuff it made it even harder to try and approach any of them and even when Kazuya summoned him to join the group, he just sat there, listening to their conversation, unable to find anything he could contribute with.

'You're alright?' Junya asked him when he returned.

'Yes,' Shinji replied.

'Did anyone pick on you?' Junya asked and, for some reason, his glance switched to Akito who stood nearby.

'No, no,' Shinji hurried to reply, 'it's just that…'

Right at that moment, Kyosuke called for everyone to gather around him saying that he needed to talk to the whole team. Junya looked from Shinji to Kyosuke and back at Shinji and, offering him his hand, he said:

'Let's go.'

Getting up, Shinji followed Junya to join the rest of the Golden Arrows.

'In these past few days,' Kyosuke said, 'I've been investigating a team I want us to challenge. Before we do that, I wanted to tell you about them and about the course where they race. Also, I hope that we'll be able to decide who among us will race against them because, this time, I want to go there to get some practice before the actual challenge.'

'Where is their course?' Junya asked.

'Enna,' Kyosuke replied, 'and the team we'll be racing are students from the Tōdō Juku Racing School.'

'What?' Akito asked, 'wasn't that the same team Dad and Keisuke-san raced against when they were young?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke said, 'Uncle Keisuke helped me get in touch with their current leader. I need to tell you that some of those guys are semi-professional and that quite a few of them have raced in autocross before.'

'Cool!' Izawa exclaimed.

'I'm glad you think so,' Kyosuke said, 'because I wanted you to be in charge of the downhill race.'

'What?' Izawa said looking suddenly a lot less enthusiastic, 'Kyosuke-san…I…'

'You've improved a lot since you joined us and I'm sure you're eager to score your second win,' Kyosuke interrupted him then, speaking to everyone but looking at Junya for the briefest moment, he said, 'I take no one has anything against Izawa representing us for the downhill race.'

'Fine by me,' Junya replied.

'I'm cool with that too,' Seisuke added while the rest of the team expressed their agreement.

'Kyosuke,' Kazuya added, 'I'd like to do the uphill race, if you don't mind.'

'Of course not,' Kyosuke said looking slightly surprised, 'I was going to ask Eiji but…'

'Eiji,' Kazuya said, 'you don't mind if I race, do you?'

'No,' Eiji replied, 'I'm not done working on the modifications I did to the NSX when…well…'

'Thanks,' Kazuya said, 'I'll owe you one,' then, talking to Kyosuke, he asked, 'when would the race be?'

'In two weeks from now,' Kyosuke replied, 'this way we'll have the time to go to Enna a couple of times.'

'Great,' Kazuya said.

Kyosuke stared at him for a short while wondering what had happened to Kazuya that had made him so eager to race, especially considering how he'd only seen him acting like that once, right when Akito had made it to F3. At any rate, he now had a lot of other things to consider, including keeping an eye on Junya and his new protégé, so he decided that he would try and talk to Kazuya sometime before going they went to Enna.

'Junya-san,' Shinji said while the pair drove back home in the wee hours of the morning.

'Yes?'

'Don't you mind that Izawa-san is doing the downhill race?' Shinji asked, 'you're the team's downhill specialist, aren't you?'

'I am,' Junya said liking he way that sounded, 'but Kyosuke is right, Izawa needs practice so I'm fine with it.'

'You're so cool,' Shinji said obviously speaking his mind aloud, 'sorry, I didn't…'

'It's okay,' Junya interrupted him offering him a smile, 'and thanks for the compliment.'

'Did you really mean it?' a still embarrassed Shinji said and before Junya could ask, he explained, 'what you said about helping me practice if I get my driving license.'

'It's not "if", it's "when",' Junya said, 'you'll get your driving license this time, I'll make sure of it. Once your arm heals completely, we'll go to the motoring office and apply for the practical exam and once you have the license, I'll help you find a car that will be suitable for you to start doing some training, okay?'

'But Junya-san,' Shinji said, 'a car is expensive and I…'

'I'll consider it a late graduation present,' Junya-san, 'besides, you'll be working full time in April so you'll be able to pay for the car's insurance and tax yourself as well as whatever modifications you'll need to do to it.'

'Junya-san…'

'Shinji,' Junya said, 'I guarantee you that you'll be a member of the Golden Arrows before this summer.'

Hearing such tone of absolute determination, Shinji decided to accept that if Junya said it could be done, it would certainly happen. After everything the older man had done for him, Shinji knew he could trust him with this as well and, deep in his heart he allowed himself to dream of, one day, being a great street racer.

Two weeks later, early on Saturday evening, the Golden Arrows gathered at the base of Mt Akagi to cover the one hundred and sixty four kilometres which separated Maebashi from the small town of Shiobara in the Tochigi Prefecture. There they would find the Route 266, right by the Nakashiobara Business Park.

Kyosuke, Kazuya and Izawa had already travelled there a couple of times during the past fortnight and they all returned saying they had fallen in love with the Enna course. Its fun corners, its seven hairpins and the many straight sectors which provided plenty of overtaking chances made it a very exciting pass indeed. In addition to that, the city council had just resurfaced it so the tarmac was in perfect conditions.

'You guys will love it too,' Izawa promised them.

Eager to get there as quickly as they could, all twelve members would have driven flat out if it wasn't because their leader ordered them not to. Junya found it hard to comply with that order since he'd been looking forward to showing off to Shinji by driving as fast as possible on the expressway, alas, he found himself having to follow his cousin Kazuya who was driving at an absurdly slow speed. On a much happier note, that Fujiwara brat was currently in Hokkaido for the first two rounds of the F3 championship.

'He's won today's race too,' Junya heard Seisuke commenting over the radio.

'Of course he has,' Kyosuke said sounding very proud, 'and I'll bet you anything he'll win tomorrow too.'

'Yeah,' Kazuya agreed, 'now that Guelfi's moved up to GP2, Akito will have no other decent rivals this year.'

Junya felt tempted to turn the radio off but, throwing a quick glance at Shinji, he saw that the younger guy was actively following the conversation. For this reason, he decided to play it cool and just let him carry on listening to the chat. Thankfully, Kei asked Kyosuke to provide them with an accurate description of the Enna course and that changed the topic to one Junya found a lot more enjoyable and, when two hours later they got to their destination it almost felt like he'd already been there. Just as Kyosuke had told them, the road proper started just after the Shiobara Junior High School and from there they followed a road which went on straight for quite a bit.

'They're already here,' Kizuna commented.

Looking out the S18's windscreen, they saw a group of people parked along a side road which went into a thick forest. They only had half a dozen cars but what shocked Junya the most was seeing three vans which contained, from what he could see, several sets of tyres, car parts and all sorts of tools. A few of the Tōdō Juku Racing School members were already working on their cars, preparing them for that evening's races.

'Is that normal?' Shinji asked him his eyes opened wide so that he wouldn't miss a thing.

'No,' Junya replied, 'but those people aren't normal street racers.'

'That's right,' Kyosuke confirmed over the radio, 'they're damn serious about what they do.'

'Don't worry Leader,' Seisuke said, 'we won't take them lightly, will we people?'

The radios cracked with the replies of several members while Junya remained quiet wishing he had not been so generous with Izawa for, right now, he felt his hands itch and he felt as restless as he did whenever he desperately wanted to race. He could always try to talk Izawa out of taking part on the race but he knew Kyosuke would never forgive him if he interfered in his plans like that. On the other hand, he really wanted…

'Junya-san,' Shinji's soft voice interrupted his thoughts.

'What?' Junya replied a tad too brusquely.

Shinji just pointed out of the windscreen and Junya saw that Kazuya was indicating him a place where they could leave their cars. Getting his concentration back on driving, Junya parked his car right behind Yuta's.

When all thirteen members of the Golden Arrows got out of their cars, they saw a short guy in his mid-twenties coming to speak to Kyosuke. Everyone was surprised to see that the guy in question was even wearing a racing suit which had his name and blood group embroidered onto a patch stuck to the right side of his chest making him look like a true professional racing driver. The guy put his hand forward and, smiling, he said:

'Welcome to the Enna Pass, my name is Sakai Sho.'

'Thanks,' Kyosuke said shaking his hand briefly, 'I'm Takahashi Kyosuke.'

'I heard about the Golden Arrows,' Sho said, 'you still haven't lost a single race.'

Kyosuke said nothing.

'My father told me about his race against your uncle,' Sho continued, 'he did lose quite badly against him.'

Kyosuke still remained silent.

'So if we race it will be kind of like a re-match,' Sho said.

'Unfortunately, I won't be the one racing,' Kyosuke said then, pointing at Izawa and Kazuya, he said, 'they will.'

'Is that so?' Sho asked looking mildly surprised, 'alright, as we discussed over the phone, we'll start with uphill race. We take off from here and the finish line is just after the seventh hairpin. We already have several of our classmates distributed along the pass, especially at the hairpins, looking out for incoming traffic. Once we're done with that race, we'll have the downhill one which will end right where we are now.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said.

'I know you guys have been training here,' Sho said, 'but I'm pretty sure some of your guys want to have a go while we finish getting our cars ready so, if you want, feel free to do a few runs before we start the race.'

With that, he left walking back towards what they all thought it was his car: an exact copy of Kazuya's Honda Civic Type-R GD4 which was even painted the same metallic red and had the same small rear spoiler.

'Kyosuke,' Kazuya said, 'you don't think Sakai will take care of the uphill race, do you?'

'I kind of hope he will,' Kyosuke replied, 'there's nothing more interesting than racing against an opponent who drives the same car as you, is there?'

'You're speaking of first hand experience, aren't you?' Kazuya asked.

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied eyeing his brother who was busy talking to Eiji.

'I guess you're right,' Kazuya commented, 'after all, racing with the same machine means that the driver is the one who makes the difference.'

'Exactly,' Kyosuke confirmed.

'Oh well,' Kazuya said, 'I guess we'll soon find out.'

'Kazuya,' Kyosuke said lowering his voice a little, 'is everything alright?'

'Sure,' Kazuya replied but something in him gave Kyosuke the impression that he was lying.

'Alright,' he said nonetheless, 'you know that…'

'I'm going up once again before the race,' Kazuya interrupted him, 'are you coming?'

Kyosuke frowned a bit but, nodding, he said:

'Sure.'

True to what they'd promised none of the Tōdō Juku members bothered the Golden Arrows while all thirteen of its members took it in turns to do a few runs and just as Izawa had predicted, they all fell in love with the Route 266 appreciating it's smooth tarmac so much more if they compared it to the one in the hellish Shomaru Pass.

'Are you alright?' Junya asked Shinji who was trying to hold onto his seat with his right hand.

'Oh yes,' Shinji replied, 'never been better.'

'If it gets too much, tell me,' Junya said, 'you're still not fully recovered and…'

'Junya-san,' Shinji dared to interrupt him, 'I'm fine, seriously. I'm just happy you're letting me ride with you.'

'Alright,' Junya said with a smile, 'then, hold on as tight as you can, okay?'

'Yes, sir,' Shinji replied sounding, for the first time, as carefree as an eighteen year old should be.

Launching the S18 downhill, Junya prepared to negotiate the first of the seven hairpins, clearing it in one very smooth and swift manoeuvre which left Shinji breathless. He continued down making sure he let the back of the car slide a little but without taking it to a full drift. In fact, Junya's idea was to let Shinji build a relative sense of security only to surprise him with a full hand-brake drift at the third or fourth hairpins.

Junya knew that he could try and do one of the inertia drifts that were Kyosuke's signature move but, not having driven on that road before, he didn't want to risk losing the car at mid-manoeuvre and lose face with the kid who, in the month they'd known each other, had come to nearly worship everything Junya did. At the fourth hairpin, he took his hand off the steering wheel and, right at the perfect spot, he let the car slide all the way in to and out of the tight corner making an effort not to laugh at Shinji's surprised yelp.

'Junya-saaan!

'What?' he asked trying to sound innocent.

'What was that?' Shinji asked, his tone sounded half-stunned, half-exhilarated.

'Oh,' Junya said dismissingly, 'it was just a drift.'

'Wow,' the kid gasped, 'I'll never ever be able to do that.'

'Yes you will be,' Junya contradicted him, 'in a few years from now,' he added.

Shinji said nothing also because as they approached the fifth hairpin, Junya delighted his young charge with yet another drift and by the end of the road, Shinji was in such hyper mood that Junya burst out laughing.

'You seriously are too much,' he said and, instinctively, he went to ruffle the kid's hair.

Fifteen minutes later, things got a lot more serious. In fact, the Tōdō Juku members had finally finished their preparations and, just as Kyosuke hoped, Sho Sakai drove his GD4 to the starting line getting ready for the uphill race. Seeing this made Kazuya move too and soon, the two identical cars were side by side. Kyosuke walked to Kazuya's window and, crouching next to it, he waited until his team mate got the glass down to start his usual pre-race pep talk.

'Keep your eyes open,' he said keeping a low tone of voice, 'that GD4's engine might surprise you.'

'I know,' Kazuya replied sounding surprisingly calm, 'I'm sure he's had it swapped with a little monster.'

'It doesn't matter,' Kyosuke said, 'your car is in perfect conditions and you can easily win this race.'

'I'll win,' Kazuya said and, out of the blue, he added, 'since it'll be my last battle with the Golden Arrows.'

_To be continued…_


	45. Chapter Forty Four

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty Four_

'Kazu…'

'I'll explain everything later, I promise,' Kazuya said and without giving Kyosuke the time to react, he closed the window while doing his best to gather the concentration he needed for what would effectively be his last race as a member of the Golden Arrows team.

Outside the GD4 an utterly stunned Kyosuke failed to notice how one of the members of the rival team had come to stand in front of the two Civic lifting his fist up in the air in preparation for the start of the race. He barely registered the moment when Kazuya and Sho revved up the engines of their cars or even when the countdown started:

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE. GO!'

Everyone there watched as the two cars took off leaving a small amount of smoke behind together with the acidic smell of burnt rubber. In his stunned state, Kyosuke didn't even think of trying to figure out the amount of horsepower produced by Sho's GD4 nor worry about the fact that Kazuya had failed to get ahead. Instead, he walked towards where Junya was.

The older man was talking to Shinji apparently explaining to the kid some of the so-called rules which applied to street racing and looked fairly surprised when he saw the severe expression on their leader's face. Fearing that Kyosuke was getting ready to give him an earful about his demand to having Shinji joining the team, he said:

'If…'

'Junya,' he interrupted him, 'Kazuya just said something very weird…'

'And that's news because?' Junya asked feeling washed with relief.

'I'm serious,' Kyosuke said stating the obvious, 'he said that this will be his last race for the team.'

That made Junya frown.

'What are you talking about?' he asked his leader.

'That's what I was hoping you would tell me,' Kyosuke replied.

'What's going on Aniki?' they heard Seisuke's voice coming from behind them.

'Er…'

'I honestly don't know what you're talking about Kyosuke,' Junya said, 'Kazuya hasn't mentioned anything.'

'What would Kazuya…'

'Be quiet Seisuke,' Kyosuke said then, talking to Junya, he said, 'has his father pressured him into quitting?'

'Quitting?' Seisuke said, 'quitting what?'

'Not as far as I know,' Junya replied obviously ignoring him.

'Aniki,' Seisuke tried again, 'what's going on? Kazuya's isn't quitting the team, is he?'

'Apparently,' Kyosuke said, 'that's what he's going to do.'

'What?' Seisuke breathed, 'that's…that's impossible!'

'Guys,' Kizuna said and only then Kyosuke noticed that his girlfriend, Yuta and the three Subaru drivers had gathered around them, 'I don't know what's going on but I think we should all pay attention to the race.'

Just then, Kyosuke noticed how quite a few of the members of the Tōdō Juku Racing School were looking at them. Some with curiosity, others with a disapproving frown on their faces which made Kyosuke feel rather ashamed that he'd let his guard down so badly in front of their rivals. For this reason, he ignored Seisuke's intensive stare and decided to get in his car so that he could listen to the mid-race reports over the radio.

Meanwhile and after having seen Sho's Civic dashing past him at the start, Kazuya was having more trouble than he had anticipated and just three corners into the race the gap between the two Honda was alarmingly wide and that had nothing to do with the fact that Kazuya was beginning to regret what he'd told Kyosuke for it had significantly affected his concentration. No, the main problem was that Sho's GD4 was just faster.

Much faster.

Steeling himself against the steering wheel, Kazuya focused trying to remember everything he'd learned about driving ever since he'd met Kyosuke at the entrance ceremony of their first year of high school nearly five years before. Even aged fifteen, Kyosuke already was a wealth of knowledge when it came to cars and when Kazuya finally made the connection between his new classmate and famous racer Takahashi Keisuke he understood the reason why. Kyosuke then told him about the Centre his family owned and soon Kazuya and his cousin Junya both became two of its most regular visitors.

Kazuya had never told anyone but meeting Kyosuke had brought the excitement his life had always lacked and he would forever feel blessed that the Golden Arrows leader had decided to ask him to help founding the team. Thanks to that he had also met his partner-in-crime Seisuke as well as the little racing genius that was Akito. Seeing the three of them so focused on their dreams had given Kazuya the motivation to fuel his own.

Alas, that was exactly what had brought him to this point.

Fighting the wave of emotion which was threatening to overcome him, Kazuya drove his Civic like he'd never driven it before and clearing corner after corner with an almost insane perfection he managed to catch up with Sho's car just as the man got ready to tackle the first of the seven hairpins with Kazuya literally stuck to its rear bumper. Without making Sho wait and the very instant both cars cleared the hairpin, Kazuya veered to the outside and in one swift move which would have made Kyosuke proud, Kazuya passed the other GD4.

He then drove on knowing that Sho would not give the lead up without a fight and, in fact, within the second turn, a fast left-hander, Kazuya saw that Sho was already right behind and pressing him like there was no tomorrow. Doing his best to keep himself from glancing at the rear view mirror, Kazuya entered the right-hander which took him to along S shaped sector. There, the second hairpin awaited them.

Just as Kazuya had predicted, his opponent remained glued to the back of his GD4 and as they exited the hairpin Kazuya knew what he had to do next. Moving out to the right he placed his car as much in the middle of the lane as possible effectively blocking Sho's way. Naturally, that wasn't enough to fight Sho off and, as they got to the following left-hand corner, Kazuya saw that Sho was already veering to the inside.

With a smirk appearing on his face, Kazuya decided to apply another strategy and, using the slightest touch on the brake, he made Sho believe that he was about to slow down. Predictably Sho slowed down a little too and just at that moment Kazuya pressed the throttle entering the corner at a higher speed than Sho's GD4.

A little bit of luck made it possible for him to clear that corner too.

The following sector would be a little trickier since it was a succession of straights interrupted only by very slight corners. Since his car was definitely slower than that of Sho, he was hard pressed to keep ahead when they made it to the chicane-like set of corners which would take them to the third of the seven hairpins.

Feeling the first tiny pearls of sweat, Kazuya entered the extremely tight right-hander with Sho still very much behind him. He had foreseen that his rival would try to overtake him at the exit but to his surprise, nothing happened. Knowing better than to let his guard down, Kazuya dashed towards the two sets of nearly ninety degree corners which laid ahead of them almost expecting Sho to use one of them to pass him but, once again, his rival did no such thing.

Beginning to feel a little unnerved by that, Kazuya kept on using the braking tactic hoping he'd mess up with Sho's pace when he noticed that by the time they got to the fourth hairpin, his rival had already adapted his pace to it indicating that he was, after all, the top student from one of the best racing schools of the region.

The two cars cleared the fourth hairpin and while Kazuya headed towards the following left-hander, he first felt, then saw Sho's Civic levelling with his own and even before his brain could come up with a way to stop it, Kazuya was forced to watch Sho performing a textbook overtaking manoeuvre which put him on the lead.

'Shit,' Kazuya muttered.

Seeing the much faster GD4 quickly getting away was rather disheartening and for a fraction of a second, Kazuya's brain filled with images of him losing the race. No, that wasn't an option. There simply was no way he would bring the first defeat to the Golden Arrows in his last race with them. Pushing any negative thoughts aside, Kazuya started trying to come up with a winning stragegy.

They had just passed the race's mid-point and they had also entered the slightly steeper part of the road and to Kazuya's underpowered Civic both facts were very bad news but if he wanted to keep up with Sho's car he really had no other option but to increase the speed and pray that the two litre engine would cope with it. Thanks to that, the taillights of Sho's GD4 remained well within his sight as the two cars cleared the fifth hairpin and Kazuya had the satisfaction of seeing as the other car got slightly closer.

By the time they covered the four very fast corners they had before they'd reach the penultimate hairpin of the course Kazuya's GD4 was once again right behind Sho's and, just then, he decided that he'd copy his rival's strategy by not using the exit of the hairpin to overtake him. Instead, he would wait for the very last corner before the seventh hairpin to pass the other Civic.

Kazuya had already chosen the exact moment in which he would attempt the manoeuvre when, just as Sho's GD4 exited the sixth hairpin, something weird happened to his car. Without any previous warning and just when Kazuya expected him to shift gears in preparation for one of the last straight sectors of the course, Sho's car seemed to simply lose both traction and speed as if it had suddenly gone back to neutral.

Too surprised to react, Kazuya nearly crashed onto the back of the other GD4 and it was only fifty percent luck, fifty percent instinctive skills which made it possible for Kazuya to dodge him while at the same time stay onto the road well away from the solid wall which ran along the right side of the road. That same instinct made him carry on driving and while he entered the last corner of the race, he glanced at the rear view mirror seeing that Sho's car had now come to a complete stop.

Feeling incredibly confused, Kazuya decided to finish the race and hope that he'd find someone from Sho's own team who would come down with him to figure out what had happened. When Kazuya crossed the finish line a few moments later, he felt that his last win with the Golden Arrows had a bittersweet taste to it.

'Congrats!' a happy Masato shouted at him through the window.

Ignoring him, Kazuya got out of the car and was going to look for a member of Sho's team when he saw that one of the team's van was already driving down.

'What happened?' Izawa asked him while Eiji and Kei joined the small group of people.

'No idea,' Kazuya replied.

'Well,' Eiji said, 'I can tell you one thing my dear friend: you've just won us another race!'

'By the way,' Masato said, 'Kyosuke-san wants to talk to you, he said your radio and your phone are switched off.'

'They are,' Kazuya confessed, 'I…I couldn't…'

Before he could finish the sentence, he saw a guy who looked like a rugby player coming towards him.

'Hey,' he said, 'Sho-san asked me to tell you that he'll be up in a sec to congratulate you in person.'

'What happened to him?' Kazuya asked.

'It's a little embarrassing,' the guy replied with a sheepish smile, 'it looks like the clutch died on him.'

'Oh,' Kazuya gasped, 'that's too bad.'

'Yeah, well,' the guy said, 'Sho-san said that you were catching up with him so, we never know how it might have ended. At any rate, he'll be here himself shortly to talk to you so,' he stopped talking and asked, 'who's doing the downhill race?'

'Er…' Izawa hesitated, he then raised his left hand and said, 'I am.'

'Cool,' the guy said, 'I'm your rival then.'

'Ah,' Izawa gasped, 'er…my name's Izawa Daichi.'

'I'm Imai Miki,' the guy said and Eiji made a chuckling sound which promptly turned into a cough.

'Nice to meet you,' Izawa said trying to cover for his team mate before Kei would kill him.

'Let's have a good race,' Miki replied apparently oblivious to the whole thing.

Izawa just nodded and then watched the guy walking away from the group.

'I swear,' Kei hissed to Eiji, 'sometimes you have the tact of a bazooka.'

'Hey,' Eiji laughed, 'come on, give me a break. How can a guy who looks like a club bouncer have such a cute name?'

'It is a little weird,' Masato accepted then, looking at Kazuya, he added, 'shouldn't you call Kyosuke-san?'

'No,' Kazuya replied firmly, 'let's just concentrate on getting this man here ready for his race.'

'Thanks,' Izawa said meaning it, 'after you've won your race, I really can't let the team down now, can I?'

'Nope,' Kazuya replied with a smile, 'but no pressure, huh?'

'Oh yeah, I'm totally relaxed,' Izawa said, his face showing the opposite of what he'd just said.

Hearing the other three guys laughing at that, Kazuya felt happy that for at least a little while longer he could pretend that everything was fine and while he moved his car out of the way so that it could be replaced by Izawa's metallic grey Vera and just as he rejoined Masato, Eiji and Kei they saw the car which would be Izawa's rival and they all exchanged a worried glance: a gleaming green 2017 Nissan GT-R R37.

'You've got to be kidding me,' Kei said.

'He'll be fine,' Eiji replied.

'I better go and talk to him,' Masato added.

Kazuya observed Masato talking to a rather nervous looking Izawa knowing that it would take a really good pep-talk in order to convince the poor guy that his Vera TDR could beat a beast like GT-R famous for having a gazillion horsepower as well as being lethal on fast mountain passes such as this one. He felt tempted to call Kyosuke to ask him if he had any advice but seeing as Izawa had his radio on, he decided to stay put.

'Hey,' he heard a voice coming from his right side.

'Hey,' Kazuya said glancing at Sho Sakai, 'I heard about your clutch.'

'Yeah,' Sho replied looking very ashamed, 'I can't believe it. I had it checked just before the race and everything looked good, there were no leaks or anything so for the life of me I don't get what happened, I can only guess the new engine was too much for it.'

'I'm sorry that we had to end the race like that,' Kazuya said.

'Hey,' Sho said with a smile, 'it's just like I said, I didn't have such a big gap, anything could have happened.'

'I guess we'll never know,' Kazuya commented.

'Well,' Sho said, 'we could always have a re-match, once I get my car fixed, that is.'

'I'd be happy to,' Kazuya replied and, checking that both Eiji and Kei were talking to each other and clearly not listening to their conversation, he added, 'but I won't be racing anymore.'

'You're quitting?' Sho asked.

'Yeah,' Kazuya said obviously not willing to elaborate.

'That's too bad,' Sho said then, offering him his hand, he said, 'well, it's been a good lesson for me.'

Kazuya shook his hands and nodded once.

Sho walked away just as Masato came back from talking to Izawa. Eiji and Kei interrupted their own conversation and Kazuya decided to join in and watch while Sho himself stood in front of the two cars ready to do the countdown. With a lump in his throat, Kazuya realised that it was going to be the last time he'd see one of his team mates starting a race and, R37 or not, he hoped that he would see Izawa win it.

Back at the base of the pass, Kyosuke was getting increasingly worried that Kazuya had not contacted him the instant he'd won the race and in spite of Kizuna's efforts to keep everyone calm and focused on the upcoming uphill race, he knew that Seisuke was dying to get onboard his RZ-1 so that he could drive up and talk to Kazuya himself. Junya wasn't dealing with the news much better and Shinji was trying to look smaller than ever.

The only ones who, as usual, didn't seem to read the atmosphere were Yuta and Shige. Again, they were both mad at Junya for not letting them anywhere near Shinji. Shuji and Tatsuya also looked fairly calm although had noticed that something was very wrong but both decided to just wait and see what happened.

There also was the fact that the guys from the Tōdō Juku Racing School were in shock at the news that their idol Sho Sakai had lost his race. Kyosuke had learned from overhearing their conversation that it had been a mechanical failure which had happened while Sho was leading the race. He knew that Kazuya could not be happy with that result and, for the umpteenth time, Kyosuke wished he could talk to the guy.

'Izawa's race's just started,' Kizuna said.

'Alright,' Kyosuke replied.

'Kyosuke,' she started, 'I don't know what Kazuya meant with what he said but I'm sure…'

'It's okay,' Kyosuke interrupted her taking her hand and giving it a quick squeeze, 'I'll talk to him later.'

'Sure,' Kizuna said, 'by the way, Eiji said Izawa's racing against a GT-R.'

'Really?' Kyosuke asked raising his eyebrows.

'Yeah,' Kizuna said, 'he'll be okay, won't he?'

'Probably,' Kyosuke replied sounding vague then, glancing at Seisuke, he added, 'I'm going to see if he's a little calmer now.'

'Good luck with that,' Kizuna said with a tiny grin.

'Thanks,' Kyosuke replied.

Closing the distance which separated him from his younger brother, Kyosuke was going to speak when Seisuke interrupted him and asked him instead:

'Did he call you?'

'No,' Kyosuke, 'but I'm sure he'll explain everything as soon as he comes down.'

'Are you sure you understood him right?' Seisuke asked, 'I mean, did you…'

'Seisuke,' he stopped him, 'I'm as confused as you are so we just need to wait for Kazuya to explain what he meant with what he said. What I want you to promise me is that, for once, you'll be patient and will listen to what he's got to say,' he stopped and noticing his brother's lack of reply, he pressed on, 'Seisuke?'

'Alright,' the future doctor said, 'I'll listen but if he says he wants to quit the team, you won't let him, right?'

'Seisuke…'

'Aniki,' he said, 'he's one of our best members and he's probably the only one with a real sense of humour...'

'Come on,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'that's a bit of an exaggeration, isn't it?'

'Alright then,' Seisuke challenged him, 'tell me of someone asides from me who is as funny as Kazuya.'

'Er…' Kyosuke said, 'Eiji's pretty funny when he wants to be.'

'Yeah,' Seisuke countered, 'key word: when he wants and let's face it, ever since Christmas he's just not been the same. The rest of you are just too damn weird or serious. Honestly Aniki, I need Kazuya in the team, I need the sanity he brings to me.'

'I know that,' Kyosuke said, 'but if he really wants to leave there isn't anything I can do to stop him.'

'You did with Kizuna,' Seisuke reminded him.

'That was different,' Kyosuke countered.

'Yeah,' Seisuke said bordering with rudeness, 'you were in love with her.'

'That's right,' an unfazed Kyosuke replied, 'and unless you've got something to tell me…

'I am NOT in love with Kazuya,' Seisuke nearly shouted.

Everyone around, including all of their team mates, heard that. A crimson faced Seisuke saw Junya shaking his head looking rather disgusted while Shinji tried harder to disappear and Yuta and Shige looked at Seisuke with wondering expressions on their faces. Kizuna just exchanged an amused glance with her boyfriend who was trying very hard not to laugh at his poor younger brother.

'Screw this,' Seisuke mumbled, 'I'm going to my car.'

Kyosuke watched him locking himself inside the white RZ-1 and only then he noticed that the guys from Tōdō Juku were once again showing several degrees of disapproval. That made Kyosuke feel a little guilty for he knew that the Golden Arrows weren't exactly going to leave a very good impression on what had to be one of the most serious and professional-like teams they had battled with. Somehow though, he couldn't bring himself to care and, once again, he started thinking of the meaning of Kazuya's parting words.

Meanwhile this happened, unaware of the ensuing drama, or comedy, depending of the watcher's point of view, in which several of his team mates were involved, Izawa took his Vera around the third hairpin feeling a tad amazed that not only he had somehow managed to pass the GT-R just after the second corner but, and that was even more shocking, Imai didn't look like he had complete control over his own car.

'It's a tactic,' he muttered to himself.

Those guys were very smart. Kyosuke had said it himself that some were semi-professionals and that most of them had raced in amateur racing events so it was only to be expected that Imai would pull some trick to make him believe he wasn't all that good. Izawa smirked thinking that he would have probably fallen for that a year ago, before he'd gathered the courage to ask to be admitted into the Golden Arrows.

Now though, it was a different story. Izawa had trained harder than anyone in the team and he and his car were now a complete unit. He knew he was very far from the level of control Kyosuke and Seisuke had over their cars and he knew that Junya, Kazuya and even Kizuna still outclassed him in terms of technique but he no longer was the worst driver of the team and right now he felt fairly confident with his skills and even more confident with the performance of his Vera TRD.

Because of this, Izawa just drove like he usually did ignoring the fact that the gap between his car and the R37 was getting wider as the race went on and it wasn't until the mid-point of the pass that he allowed himself to check the rear view mirror gasping when he did.

Not seeing anyone behind him, Izawa dared to turn round very briefly so that he could see the nothingness with his own eyes. He moved his eyes back to the front of his car and for a tiny moment he considered slowing down then, he frowned and told himself off mentally for even thinking such a stupid thing. Instead, Izawa continued driving down as fast as he could and, speaking towards the radio's mike, he said:

'Professor, Phoenix here, do you copy?.'

'Professor here,' Masato replied, 'I copy Phoenix, what's up?'

'I'm not sure,' Izawa said, 'listen, has that Imai guy reported any problems with his car?'

A bit of silence followed.

'No,' Masato replied, 'not that we know of, do you want Awesome One to go and check?'

'No,' Izawa replied, 'something's weird but I'll figure it out.'

'Okay,' Masato said.

Izawa carried on driving all the way to the penultimate hairpin without seeing any sign of the green GT-R and it wasn't until he covered the rest of the distance to the seventh and final hairpin that he realised that there was no trick. Somehow, that Imai guy wasn't anywhere near as good as his car or his team made everyone think and when he finally crossed the finish line he stepped out of his Vera and went straight to speak to one of the Tōdō Juku representatives.

'Okay,' Izawa said, 'what happened to Imai?'

'Izawa…'

'Kyosuke-san,' he started explaining to him and to the rest of the team, 'Imai…'

Just then the green GT-R crossed the finish line, twenty three seconds after Izawa. With both parties involved present, the Golden Arrows waited for Imai to explain the reason of his poor performance and what he said, speaking to his team mates, left everyone feeling like they were being victims of some candid camera.

'Not bad for a first race, huh?'

The shock which followed left them all speechless at first but, as they realised how lucky they'd been with both races, the members of the Golden Arrows finally allowed themselves to celebrate. They only stopped when, a few minutes later, they were joined by the five members of the Golden Arrows who had been at the other end of the road then, seeing Kazuya climbing out of his car as slowly as he could, everyone sobered up and waited for him to talk.

'Hey,' he finally said forcing his usual smile, 'why the long faces?'

'Kazuya…'

'Come on Kyosuke,' he said, 'we've won the races, haven't we?'

'What did you…'

'Please,' Kazuya interrupted him getting serious, 'can we not talk about this now?'

Everyone saw him glancing at the Tōdō Juku members who also looked to be in shock after losing both races.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said.

'Alright my ass,' Seisuke complained, 'I don't want to wait till we'll get back home, I want to know now.'

'Seisuke,' Kazuya started, 'I…'

'What the hell did you mean when you told Aniki that it was going to be your last race with us?'

'Seisuke, it can wait,' Kyosuke tried.

'No it can't,' Seisuke countered almost glaring at Kazuya, 'what did you…'

'Fine,' Kazuya said with a resigned sigh, 'I should have kept my mouth shut but since I haven't, I guess I'll have to tell you like this,' he stopped speaking and, looking like he was having trouble getting it out, he finally chocked the words out, 'in two weeks I'll be moving to the UK. I'm transferring to Oxford University.'

'What?' Kyosuke managed to say.

'Since when?' Junya also asked.

'What do you mean you're going to move to the UK?' was Seisuke's question.

'My father has arranged for me to be transferred to his Alma Mater,' Kazuya explained, 'it's been my dream since I was little to go and study in Oxford University, I just never really put the effort to make it happen but…'

'Why do you have to go to the UK?' Seisuke asked obnoxiously.

'Because that's where Oxford is,' Kazuya replied trying to crack a joke.

'Why didn't you tell me?' Seisuke complained looking like he was close to tears.

'Why should I?' Kazuya replied sounding almost impersonal.

Seisuke looked like he'd just been punched and before anyone not even Kyosuke could stop him, he ran to his RZ-1, climbed into it, and drove off going a lot faster than anyone had ever seen him go before.

_To be continued…_


	46. Chapter Forty Five

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty Five_

It took Kyosuke less than a handful of seconds for him to run to his car, climb into it and drive after his younger brother but with Seisuke driving so fast, Kyosuke knew that he would need all the power his RZ-1 could give him if he wanted to catch up with him before he got into the expressway.

'Seisuke,' Kyosuke said, too worried to think about using their call signs, 'Seisuke, I know you can hear me.'

As an answer, Kyosuke heard the distinctive click of when a radio got turned off.

'Brilliant,' he muttered darkly.

Meanwhile, back at the base of the Route 266, everyone's gazes were still fixed on Kazuya.

'That went well,' he said clearly talking to himself.

'What did you expect?' Junya said angrily.

'Kazuya,' a much calmer Kizuna said, 'why didn't you tell anyone that you were planning on leaving?'

'I don't know,' the guy said, 'I guess I didn't want to jinx it.'

'Uncle Masaki never said a word either,' Junya commented still glaring at his cousin.

'I asked him to keep quiet,' Kazuya said, 'I just wasn't all that confident. There were very few places and I knew that the competition to get in half-way through the course would be fierce so I just…I…'

'I understand,' Kizuna said giving him what she hoped would be a supportive look.

'I knew you would,' Kazuya replied smiling gratefully, 'in fact, it's because of you that I even tried.'

'What?'

'The thing is,' Kazuya explained, 'while I was in high school I never thought of applying thinking that no matter who my father was, it would just be too much effort to get accepted so I kind of never tried. Then I saw Kyosuke, Seisuke and especially Akito so focused on their dreams that it made me wish I had worked harder for mine. Then I met you,' he said looking at Kizuna, 'and it just hit me. If you had dared to come to Japan all by yourself to chase after your dreams then I had to dare too and make an effort to make my dreams come true too.'

'Wait,' Kizuna said frowning a little, 'are you saying that's all my fault?'

'In a way,' Kazuya replied, 'yes, you could say that.'

'Oh great,' Kizuna said, 'Seisuke is going to love this.'

'Oh shit…'

'Now he realises,' Junya said sardonically.

'I was a total ass to him back there, wasn't I?' Kazuya asked looking very guilty.

'In a word: yes,' Kizuna replied gently.

'Let's hope Kyosuke catches up with him before he does something stupid like crashing his car,' Junya said.

'Don't even joke about that!' Kazuya exclaimed while Kizuna looked horrified.

'Guys,' Masato finally intervened, 'I think we should all get moving.'

'That's right,' Izawa added, 'with a bit of luck we might even catch up with them.'

'Yeah, right,' Kei replied sarcastically.

'Let's just go,' Kizuna said.

Everyone obeyed that and while they all climbed into their cars, it suddenly made sense to them that, with Kyosuke and Seisuke gone and with Kazuya too shaken to do anything useful, it should be Kizuna who would take command of the team. Junya in his S18 found that thought to be most annoying but somehow he didn't feel like arguing right now. No, there would be time to make sure they all understood the team's hierarchy later.

Kyosuke only spotted the back of Seisuke's car when the white RZ-1 left the provincial road to get into the expressway then, checking carefully that there were no incoming cars, Kyosuke overtook the small van which was in between the two Mazda and then he just floored it getting into the expressway at over one hundred and forty kilometres an hour.

Unfortunately that wasn't enough and soon Kyosuke found himself going faster and faster until he got past the one hundred and eighty kilometres which kind of ensured him no police cars would try to come after him. At two hundred and five he started freaking out: since Seisuke was still ahead of him, Kyosuke didn't want to think of the speed at which his little brother was driving.

'Seisuke…'

This impromptu chase lasted for nearly half an hour during which Kyosuke managed to catch up with Seisuke but knowing that any attempt to make him slow down would be unsuccessful, Kyosuke decided to just stay with him and then force him to leave the expressway taking the exit for Maebashi if only to make sure that Seisuke actually went home and wasn't planning on driving to only goodness knew where.

As it turned out, Seisuke went out at the right exit on his own accord and Kyosuke had the satisfaction of seeing that his brother was actually driving home. Knowing that he now just needed to wait, he decided to use the little time he had to call Kizuna on her mobile and figure out what had happened to the rest of the team.

'Hi,' she replied.

'Kizuna, where's everybody?' he asked.

'We're heading home as we speak,' Kizuna said.

'Great,' Kyosuke said, 'listen, is Kazuya alright?'

'Sort of,' she said, her cryptic answers meant her radio was on, 'where's Seisuke?'

'We're ten minutes away from home,' Kyosuke replied.

'Already?' Kizuna asked sounding surprised, 'how fast were you driving?'

'Very,' Kyosuke replied, 'trust me, you don't want to know.'

'Alright, don't tell me then,' she said sounding a little worried.

'I'll call you tomorrow, okay?' Kyosuke said.

'That'd be today,' Kizuna pointed out and she was right, it was now nearly two in the morning.

'Of course,' Kyosuke said, 'I'll call you in a few hours.'

'Sure,' Kizuna said.

A few minutes later Kyosuke followed Seisuke up the lane which led to the house's massive garage and as soon as Seisuke stopped to wait for the gate to be fully opened, Kyosuke snatched his seatbelt open and climbing out of the car, he walked towards his brother's, planting himself in front of the white RZ-1.

'Get out,' he said trying to keep his voice down but loud enough for Seisuke to hear him.

'No,' Seisuke replied stubbornly.

'Don't make me say it again,' Kyosuke said sounding glacial.

Seisuke looked like he was going to say no again when he bowed his head in defeat and, turning the engine off, he bought himself some time while he undid his seatbelt then, moving slowly, he opened the door and climbed out of the car. Kyosuke took that chance to walk around the RZ-1 and towards Seisuke.

'Are you insane?' he asked him.

The younger brother simply stared at him and, for the first time, Kyosuke noticed that he was crying.

'Seisuke…'

'I thought we were friends,' the future doctor finally said, his voice broken with sorrow.

'What?'

'Kazuya and I,' he replied, 'I thought we were friends.'

'You are friends,' Kyosuke said.

'We're obviously not,' Seisuke countered, 'friends don't plan on moving to another country without telling you.'

'Seisuke,' Kyosuke said trying to be patient, 'we need to listen to his story, maybe he's got a reason to do what he did.'

'I don't care anymore,' Seisuke said.

'Come on, Seisuke,' he replied, 'that's not you talking, you're just upset and…'

'Aniki,' he interrupted him, 'I'm serious. If he cared, he would have told us so, why should I care?'

'Seisuke…'

'Forget it,' Seisuke said, 'after all, we already have a real friend.'

'What?'

'Akito would never do something like that,' Seisuke said, 'now, I'm going to bed, please park my car for me.'

With that, he just walked to the main entrance and, using a key which wasn't used very often, he entered the house through that door instead of the one which connected the garage with the house. Kyosuke then realised that he had been left alone and with the task of parking both RZ-1s inside the family's garage.

'Great,' he muttered.

The next day, Kyosuke woke up to find out that Seisuke had already left, according to their Aunt Kyoko, to go to the library before she'd gone to the Centre herself to help Uncle Keisuke and since he knew that both of his parents were at the Takahashi Clinic preparing some sort of seminar, he was home alone.

'Kizuna?' he said while calling her, 'I didn't wake you, did I?'

'No,' she said, 'I was reading an email from Uncle Josh.'

'Is everything alright back home?' he asked her.

'Well enough,' she replied, 'what about your home? How is Seisuke?'

'Not doing so good,' Kyosuke said and spent a couple of minutes explaining it all to her.

'Oh,' she gasped, 'that doesn't sound like Seisuke, does it?'

'Actually,' he said, 'it sounds exactly like him. Seisuke's really unforgiving when he's pissed and, right now, he's very angry at Kazuya. To be honest, I see where Seisuke's coming from because I was also taken aback when I heard Kazuya's announcement, after all, we've known each other for nearly five years and he never ever said anything about wanting to go to Oxford.'

'He said he didn't want to jinx it,' Kizuna commented, 'but, if I can say what I think…'

'Please do,' Kyosuke said.

'I think he was afraid of your reaction,' Kizuna replied, 'I remember when I told a couple of my schoolmates that I wanted to go to university in Japan and they all thought I was nuts. Then once it became a reality and I started telling people that I was leaving, I don't know, I felt like they were distancing themselves from me.'

'But…'

'I know you guys wouldn't have done that,' she said, 'but I'm not so sure Kazuya did also, there's the problem with the team. When you asked him to help you with it, I'm sure he never thought it would get as serious as it is now so I'm sure Kazuya kind of felt like he was letting you down by leaving you now.'

'You know what?' Kyosuke asked, 'what you're saying makes a lot of sense.'

'Well,' Kizuna said, 'I have the advantage of being able to see it from the outside.'

'That's true,' Kyosuke said, 'I wish Seisuke was able to see it like that too.'

'He will be,' Kizuna reassured him, 'he just needs time.'

'Unfortunately,' Kyosuke said, 'we don't really have that much, you heard Kazuya, he's leaving in two weeks.'

'That's plenty of time,' Kizuna said, 'to begin with, I'm hoping that you'll approve an idea I've just had.'

'What is it?' Kyosuke asked.

'What would you say if we have a party at the base of Mt Akagi and, while we're at it, we might have Kazuya's final race as a member of our team,' Kizuna said, 'I already know against who he would race.'

'Seisuke?' Kyosuke said.

'Either him or,' Kizuna replied, 'what about if you race him.'

'Me?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yes,' Kizuna said, 'you. I'm pretty sure everyone would approve if you raced Kazuya.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'I guess it could be arranged, after all, I don't think Kazuya and I have ever raced.'

'There you go,' Kizuna said.

'Kizuna,' he said and, this time his tone was anything but business-like.

'Yes?'

'I love you,' he said.

'I know,' she replied before hanging up.

Ten days later, on the last Saturday Kazuya would spend in Japan, the whole gang agreed to meet up at the bottom of Mt Akagi's Pass. Kyosuke and Kizuna's combined efforts to try and persuade Seisuke to speak to Kazuya before that day were rendered useless when, two days after the Enna incident, the future doctor announced that he and Kaori were going to spend a few days in the house Kaori's family had in Okinawa.

'Where's Seisuke?' Kizuna asked him as quietly as she could.

'He's not back yet,' Kyosuke replied.

'Doesn't the new academic year start on Monday for him too?' Kizuna asked.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'but I fear that's what he's waiting for to return.'

'But…'

'Shush,' he said seeing that Kazuya and the rest of the team were finally arriving.

One by one, all ten of the members of the Golden Arrows parked their cars and soon, twelve of them plus Shinji were gathered around a table Kizuna had set up with several non-alcoholic drinks, finger-food and other munchies she'd had delivered to the parking area by a catering delivery boy who had looked confused.

'Seisuke?' Kazuya asked to the Golden Arrows leader.

Kyosuke shook his head once.

'I see,' Kazuya said, 'what about Akito? Is he…'

'He's finally realised he's not a member of the team,' Junya said with a smirk while he grabbed some crisps.

'No,' Kyosuke said glaring at him, 'he's been held up with some last minute testing.'

'I see,' Kazuya repeated, 'I hope I'll see him before I leave.'

'I'm sure you will,' Kyosuke said, 'he was shocked to hear that you were leaving.'

'He's not the only one, I daresay,' Kazuya said with a sad smile on is face.

'No, he's not,' Kyosuke replied, 'but I'm sure that it's all for the best. I, for one, am happy you managed to achieve your dream and, even if you won't be here with us, I think I speak on behalf of he whole team when I say that you'll always be one of us, no matter where you are and how many years it's been.'

Kazuya closed his eyes a bit as if he were trying to hide the fact that he was about to burst into tears.

'Thanks,' he managed to choke was he was sure he had his tears under control.

'Alright,' Kizuna intervened, 'now, this is a party, who wants to hear some music?'

Most of them said they would and soon they were engaged in a competition to see who had the best taste in music as well as comparing the size of the speakers on their cars' sound system. In the end, Eiji won the argument by a landslide when he played the contents of his own mp3 player which contained, among others, the greatest hits of Queen, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles. They were listening to "We Are The Champions" when Kizuna decided that Seisuke wasn't going to show up and, talking to Kyosuke, she said:

'You still want to go ahead with the plan, right?'

'Of course,' he replied.

He then walked up to Kazuya who was busy chatting with Shuji and Tatsuya about the places he would go and check once he moved to the UK, including some of the F1 and rally teams who had their headquarters there

'Kazuya,' he said.

'Yes?'

'I'd like to challenge you to a race,' Kyosuke said.

Everyone's jaws, especially Junya's, dropped at the same time and Kizuna found it hard not to burst out laughing. They were all staring back and forth from Kyosuke to Kazuya as if they were playing a match of invisible tennis when Kazuya, finally having recovered from the shock, got very serious and said:

'I take you're not kidding me.'

'No I'm not,' Kyosuke replied.

'Now,' Kazuya started, 'that's what I call a sweet revenge.'

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked looking a little confused.

'I shocked you with my news of moving to the UK,' Kazuya explained, 'now you're challenging me to a race.'

'You're free to say no,' Kyosuke offered.

'As if,' Kazuya replied smiling like he hadn't done in a while, 'I doubt the occasion will present itself again.'

'Probably not,' Kyosuke replied, 'so, what do you say?'

'Only one thing,' Kazuya said, 'uphill or downhill?'

'Your choice,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'm game regardless.'

'Alright,' Kazuya said, 'since we're down here already, I'd say we're going up.'

'Great,' Kyosuke said, 'I'll go and get my car.'

Right then, the rest of the team gathered at the starting line each eager to see this unexpected addition to the party's menu. Everyone knew that Kyosuke never accepted challenges from the members of the team so for him to issue the challenge himself was extraordinary enough to know that it would never happen again.

For this race, Kizuna offered to do the countdown and, as soon as Kyosuke's RZ-1 and Kazuya's GD4 were lined up, she exchanged a quick glance with Kyosuke through the windscreen of his Mazda before shouting:

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE: GO!'

They all watched Kyosuke letting Kazuya take the lead, just as he usually did when he wanted to render the race more interesting. Then they saw the two cars approaching the first corner and, after that, they were gone. Just then, Junya started running towards his own ride without even pausing to explain anything to Shinji but, before he could even get into the car, he got stopped by Masato, Eiji and Kizuna herself.

'What are you doing?' he demanded.

'Don't get involved,' Masato said.

'The hell I won't,' Junya replied trying to push him out of the way.

'Junya,' Kizuna said, 'this is Kyosuke's way of thanking Kazuya for all he's done for the team.'

'That's right,' Eiji added, 'don't spoil his efforts.'

Junya glared at them briefly but, seeing that the rest of the team seemed to agree with their three team mates, he decided to just let it go. He also realised that he'd just done something incredibly uncool in front of Shinji but, thankfully, the instant he'd left the kid alone, Yuta and Shige had gone to ask him if he had ever tried mixing coke, orange juice and non-alcoholic beer and then dip curry flavoured crisps into it.

Meanwhile Junya busied himself rescuing Shinji, things were heating up between Kyosuke and Kazuya. The Golden Arrows leader was surprised to see that Kazuya's driving had improved yet again and that he had to make an effort to keep up behind the Honda. Not only that but it seemed like Kazuya's style had absorbed quite a lot of the different driving techniques he'd learned both at the Centre as well as during his two years of street racing and now Kazuya's driving was just like the man himself: eclectic and versatile.

Kyosuke felt even sorrier to see him go and recognised that with Kazuya gone, the Golden Arrows would lose one of their finest racers. But it wasn't time to get depressed, Kyosuke thought. No, he had a job to do and he had to do it now before the fastest part of the road would be over to give way to the steeper sector.

Using the last of the long straights, Kyosuke slowed down a bit only to veer to the left and, opening the throttle, he first levelled with Kazuya's GD4 keeping up with him for an instant, only to cut right ahead of him as the straight ended and the most challenging part of the course begun. In the succession of tight corners and challengingly steep straights, Kyosuke offered Kazuya a festival of his best driving skills, showing him everything that he'd learned in his many years practicing with Seisuke at their uncle's Centre.

Needless to say, by the time they got to the summit, Kazuya was too in awe to complain about his absolute defeat. Instead, he got out of his Honda and while Kyosuke also climbed out of this Mazda then, he said:

'Thank you that was…that was unforgettable.'

'That's what I hoped,' Kyosuke said with a small smile.

Kazuya then walked back to his car and Kyosuke saw him as he started removing the Golden Arrows decals.

'Wait,' Kyosuke said, 'don't do that.'

'But…'

'I've said this before,' Kyosuke said, 'no matter where you are, you're one of us. Those stickers are yours.'

'Are you sure?' Kazuya asked him.

'Positive,' Kyosuke, 'you were one of the founding members, you'll always be welcome back.'

'Thanks,' Kazuya said and then, seeing that they were alone, he went and gave Kyosuke a one-armed hug.

'You're welcome,' Kyosuke half-whispered.

'I'm really sorry,' Kazuya said letting him go, 'I knew it was going to be hard but…'

'Shush,' Kyosuke said, 'don't say anything.'

'Alright,' Kazuya said looking a little relieved, 'ah, I nearly forgot!'

'What is it?' Kyosuke asked.

'Please make sure no one comes to the airport,' Kazuya asked, 'I don't think I could face it.'

Kyosuke just gave him a vague nod for he simply refused to lie to him. While the two drove back down, he felt slightly guilty for not being able to tell him about the second part of Kizuna's plans and, less than twenty four hours later and just as Kazuya boarded one of his family's cars which would take him to the airport, the other eleven members of the Golden Arrows were already on their way to Narita. All except Seisuke.

'I can't believe he's not coming,' Izawa commented to Masato through their private radio channel.

'It can't be helped,' Masato replied, 'after all, he is in Okinawa.'

'I know,' Izawa said, 'but he could have returned in time to see him off…'

Masato didn't reply but he silently agreed with his best friend.

Soon they all went into the Short Stay parking and one by one they all found someplace to leave their cars then, just as Kizuna had asked them to, they walked towards the British Airways check-in area to wait there.

Not even ten minutes later, keeping with the schedule Kyosuke had predicted, Kazuya showed up with one of the members of his father's staff, probably some junior secretary. From their not-so-secret hiding place, they saw Kazuya arguing with the man until he convinced him that he was no longer five years old and that yes, he could handle the check in process by himself and that if he could please just go back home.

Taking the secretary's reluctant departure as their cue, the Golden Arrows were going to announce their presence to Kazuya when they saw Seisuke running into the terminal looking slightly short of breath. He looked around for a couple of seconds until they saw him locating Kazuya who was queuing at the check in.

'Kazuya!' they heard him shouting.

As if they were in some sort of TV drama, they watched Kazuya turning towards Seisuke and, just then, Seisuke ran towards him and before anyone around them could figure out what was happening, Seisuke enfolded Kazuya in his arms, hugging him tightly while he started talking at a machine-gun rate:

'You're such an idiot,' he said, 'you should have explained everything to us instead of being scared or freaked out or whatever you freaking think you were. What kind of friends do you think we are if you can't trust us? Do you have any idea of how worried I've been thinking you didn't think of us as your friends?'

'Seisuke…'

'I'm sorry for getting mad at you and for not talking to you and for being an idiot too.'

'Seisuke,' Kazuya tried again while he also tried to free himself from Seisuke's hug, 'it's okay.'

'No it's not,' Seisuke said and he was now crying, 'I've wasted so many days…'

'I know,' Kazuya replied, 'but you need to let me go.'

'I know,' Seisuke said sounding sad.

'No,' Kazuya wheezed, 'I mean it literally, you do need to let me go: I can't breathe!'

Just then, Seisuke realised what Kazuya meant and released him so suddenly that the guy nearly fell on his butt. At this point, Kyosuke and the rest of the Arrows feared that they had lost their timing to show up but, when everyone around Kazuya and Seisuke started laughing, they all decided to come out some of them laughing too.

'Guys!' Kazuya exclaimed, 'what are you…'

'Come on,' Eiji said, 'you seriously didn't think we'd all stay home, did you?'

Kazuya looked at them shaking his head and then, seeing that they really had caused a scene, he smiled and placing his arm around Seisuke's shoulders and obviously speaking to the people around them, he said:

'Well, this was the last show by the Doctor and the Awesome One, thank you for watching!'

That only made everyone laugh all over again and by the time Kazuya finally checked in for his flight to London Heathrow, the girl at the check in desk looked at him as if she'd been expecting some movie star.

'Embarrassing till the very end,' Junya complained.

'Come on,' Kazuya said, 'can't you be a bit nicer to your one and only cousin who is going to be living on the other side of the planet for the next two and a half years?'

'I'm going to regret this,' Junya said and, giving him a quick hug, he said, 'have a nice trip and behave.'

'See?' Kazuya asked looking both amused and a tad emotional, 'this wasn't that hard, was it?'

'Shut up,' Junya said looking a little flustered.

Fifteen minutes later it was time for Kazuya to walk to the gates when he spent a few words for everyone:

'Kizuna: do your best to put up with Kyosuke's antics and with this bunch of mountain monkeys; Izawa: you've improved so much since you joined us but you know you still can do better, keep it up; Masato: I'm glad I voted to have your team merge with us, you've brought a lot of excitement into our lives, thanks for that; Kei: I hope time will help you and your family be as close as you used to be, I learned a lot from you; Eiji: I'm going to miss your prince-like manners and, also, if you ever need to go to a paintball park again, just give me a call, I'm sure we'll find one in England; Yuta and Shige: if you're ever abducted by aliens, please tell them to leave me alone, I like Planet Earth a lot, okay?'

He stopped only to make sure Yuta and Shige said yes to that.

'Shuj and Tatsu: I know you guys have a big responsibility to take over your fathers jobs so do your best; to Shinji: I hope you'll have a much happier life from now on, even if you're living with my cousin; last but not least, Kyosuke and Seisuke: contrary to what you might have at some point believed, you two were my first real friends. I would literally not be here if it hadn't been because I met you and I'll be forever grateful that you let me be part of this great team.'

Kizuna noticed that she was crying and, to her surprise, she saw that several of the Golden Arrows had tears in their eyes too. Seeing this and fearing that he would also start crying, Kazuya turned round and waving at everyone he said:

'Take care!'

With that, he was gone, taken downstairs by the escalator.

_To be continued…_


	47. Chapter Forty Six

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty Six_

The last week of May had brought a sharp increase of temperature to the whole of the Kanto region and Akito felt grateful that his father had turned on the air-con in the Mazda van they were currently using to carry a batch of brand new racing equipment the Centre had just bought to replace some of the older materiel.

'It is hot today, isn't it?' Takumi commented without taking his eyes off the road.

'Yeah,' Akito replied, 'but I'm glad I could get out of the house for a bit.'

'Well,' his father said, 'you know I've only let you come with me because you finished all your homework.'

'Please Dad, don't start you too,' Akito complained.

'Son,' he said, 'remember that your teacher said they only let you advance to the second year because you promised that you would study hard and would limit your absences to the absolutely minimum.'

'Hey,' Akito objected, 'I've only missed a few days so far.'

'It's been less than two months since you started your second year,' Takumi reminded him.

'Well,' he countered, 'I'm sure I won't miss as many schooldays as I did last year.'

'That's true,' Takumi admitted, 'now that you're no longer involved in karting.'

'At any rate,' Akito said eager to change topic, 'I had to come with you because I had to meet with Ryoko.'

'I could have driven her home myself,' Takumi pointed out.

'Alright,' Akito finally gave in, 'I wanted to go to the Centre, it's been ages since I went there.'

Takumi didn't say anything, he only gave him a look which could have meant anything.

'By the way,' Akito said, 'how did you manage to persuade Keisuke-san into letting Ryoko stay overnight?'

'That's easy,' Takumi replied, 'we promised him that Ryoko would share with Haruko.'

'Ah,' Akito said sounding a little disappointed.

'What?' Takumi laughed, 'you didn't think we'd let her sleep in your room, did you?'

'No!' Akito exclaimed, his voice sounding a little too strained, 'of course not.'

'That's right,' Takumi said looking serious, 'just remember that your mother and I sleep with our door open.'

'I know,' Akito said feeling so embarrassed that he was grateful to see that they had already reached the entrance of the Takahashi Motorsports Centre. He was even happier when he spotted a white RZ-1 there.

'Seisuke's here,' Takumi commented.

Akito just nodded.

While his father drove the van to the warehouse the Centre used to store the karts and the racing equipment, he watched around to see if he could find Seisuke somewhere and only when they passed by the main circuit, Akito saw the youngest of his two best friends leaning against the wall which separated the pitlane from the track. He also noticed that Seisuke was currently watching one of the Centre's Vera as it went around the course. At first Akito thought it probably was Kyosuke but observing the car a little more carefully, he saw that the driving style was too unkempt to be that of the leader of the Golden Arrows.

'Go,' Takumi said while parking the van and seeing what his son was watching.

'Dad,' Akito said, 'won't you need a hand?'

'Nope,' Takumi replied then, he added, 'I'm not that old that I need your help with a few boxes.'

'I know that,' Akito said smiling at his father.

Jumping out of the van, he ran towards the circuit's pitlane making it to where Seisuke was just a few moments later. Now that Akito could see him closer, he noticed that his best friend looked a little bored and was about to ask about the identity of the Vera's driver when Seisuke saw him and, grinning at him, he said:

'Hey, what are you doing here?'

'In theory,' Akito replied returning the smile, 'I came here to help my father with some supplies. In practice, I'm running away from the homework-nazi.'

'Homework-nazi?' Seisuke asked him with a chuckle, 'is that what you're calling your mother these days?'

'I'm glad you find it funny,' Akito said sarcastically, 'do you have any idea of what it's like? I'm getting nightmares where I'm being chased by a gigantic calculator and where all the pages of my English dictionary turn blank just when I need to work on a translation. It's really messing up with my sleeping patterns.'

'I feel for you man,' Seisuke said with a smile.

'If only I had your brains,' Akito complained, 'I can't believe you and your brother actually like studying.'

'It's not that bad,' Seisuke said, 'besides, it's easier when you study stuff you're actually interested in.'

'That's true, I guess,' Akito said.

'Take the FIA F3 regulations,' Seisuke commented, 'you remember all of them by heart, don't you?'

'Well,' Akito said, 'I kind of have to, I mean, if I didn't I would probably end up getting disqualified.'

'There you go,' Seisuke said, 'that's an example of what I meant, you're interested in knowing that and therefore you find it easier to remember. You know, if you tried using racing scenarios for your algebra problems or maybe translate articles from English motorsports magazines you would find it a lot less boring.'

'Hey,' Akito exclaimed, 'that's a brilliant idea!'

'Of course it is,' Seisuke said with a smug smile on his face, 'ah,' he gasped, 'before I forget, Kazuya sent me a few pictures of the Williams headquarters which is just a short drive from Oxford. He said it's awesome and asked me to forward them to you, I'll do that as soon as I get home, okay?'

'Alright', Akito said, 'I'm glad to see Kazuya's getting used to his new life.'

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied, 'he wasn't too happy when he found out that the city of Oxford isn't exactly petrol-heads heaven but he seems to be getting along with his classmates and life at the dorm isn't bad either. Apparently there's a party almost every week so that's keeping him busy enough.'

'That's good,' Akito said, 'I'm also happy that you two made up just in time, I know Kyosuke was worried.'

'Don't remind me,' Seisuke asked him, 'my behaviour was appalling.'

'You had your reasons to behave like that,' Akito pointed out, 'I now know that it's not cool keeping stuff from your friends, no matter how embarrassing it might be. I know Kazuya probably felt rather stupid too.'

'He did,' Seisuke said, 'he told me in the first email he sent me that he was sorry for having been an ass.'

'That's good,' Akito repeated.

'Speaking of good things,' Seisuke said with a devilishly smile appearing on his face, 'a little birdie told me that a certain baby cousin of mine is going to spend the night at the house of a certain best friend of mine.'

'Yeah,' Akito said trying to remain composed, 'she's coming with us tomorrow to Motegi and since we need to leave very early, Dad thought it would be better if she was already in the house.'

'That's very convenient,' Seisuke said somehow making it sound a little dirty.

'She'll sleep in my sister's room,' Akito explained.

'Which is, where?' Seisuke asked, 'just across the corridor from yours?'

'Anyway,' Akito said once again eager to change topic, 'who's that in the Vera?'

'Nice try,' Seisuke replied, 'but I'll humour you this once: that's Shinji.'

'Ah,' Akito said, 'and why are you here watching him?'

'Aniki is helping Junya with the car he's just bought for Shinji,' Seisuke explained, 'and I'm in charge of baby-sitting him.'

That made Akito laugh a little, then, he asked:

'So, Junya-san has finally bought him a car?'

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied, 'I don't know which one. Aniki said Junya wants to keep it a secret even from Shinji.'

'He's so lucky,' Akito said glancing wistfully at the Vera while it went around the track. 'you know,' he added, 'I'm actually surprised seeing Junya being so doting on Shinji. I thought that Junya simply hated younger people but it seems like he just hates me. In a way, it's kind of reassuring.'

'I'm surprised too,' Seisuke admitted, 'but I think that you should be grateful to Shinji.'

'Why is that?'

'Well,' Seisuke said, 'I think that taking care of Shinji is keeping Junya too busy for him to pick on you.'

'That's true too,' Akito said amazed at that prospect, 'at any rate,' he added, 'I'm happy for Shinji, don't you think he's become a little more confident? Especially since he got his driving license a couple of weeks ago.'

'You're right,' Seisuke agreed, 'I've noticed that too.'

'Oh,' Akito sighed, 'I so wish I could get mine as well.'

'Be strong,' Seisuke told him gently, 'in less than a year and a half you'll also have your license.'

'Yeah,' Akito said, 'a year and a half.'

Seisuke was going to say something when his mobile started ringing. Pulling it out of the pocket of his jeans, he checked the caller ID and saw that it was Kaori. Before answering the call, he glanced at Akito and said:

'Keep an eye on him for me, will you?'

Akito only had the time to nod before Seisuke just walked down the pitlane so that he could talk to his girlfriend in private. Shaking his head once, he smiled at his best friend before glancing back at the track where he could see Shinji going around a right-hander while trying to keep the Vera firmly on what he probably believed was the best possible line. Akito frowned while he saw how far from the apex he went and for the following half a lap, he observed the Shinji's driving noticing that he always went too wide in every corner.

A few minutes later and with Seisuke busy laughing at something Kaori had told him, Akito saw Shinji coming from the opposite side of the pitlane probably to take a well deserved break. Shinji saw him too and as soon as he stopped the car, he climbed out of it and, skipping all the common pleasantries, he asked:

'Where's Seisuke-san?'

'Just there,' Akito replied pointing at the other end of the pitlane, 'he'll be back soon.'

'Ah,' Shinji said forcing himself to relax a little.

'So,' Akito said trying to make conversation, 'you're practicing really hard, aren't you?'

'Of course,' Shinji replied, 'Junya-san wants me to be ready in less than two weeks.'

'Why is that?' Akito asked him.

'It's a surprise,' Shinji said.

'He's taking really good care of you, isn't he?' Akito asked.

'Yes,' Shinji replied, 'I'm very lucky.'

'Listen,' Akito said, 'I've seen you're always going a little too wide at the corners, if you slow down a bit before…'

'No offence,' Shinji interrupted him using an almost Junya-like tone of voice, a far cry from the scaredy-cat he'd been just a few weeks before, 'I know you're an F3 racer and all but, I think you're a little too early to criticise what Junya-san has been teaching me. I mean, you don't even have your license, do you?'

'No,' Akito started, 'I just…'

'Hey,' Seisuke said rejoining them, 'is everything alright with the car?'

'Everything is perfect, Seisuke-san,' Shinji said and Akito couldn't help but to notice the difference in the tone he now used to speak to Seisuke, 'I was just taking a short break to stretch my legs a bit but I should get back in to complete today's set of laps.'

Seisuke nodded but said nothing and, as soon as Shinji drove off in the Vera, he looked at Akito and said:

'Is everything alright?'

'Yeah,' Akito said not sounding entirely convincing.

'Alright,' Seisuke said deciding to let it go for the time being, 'so,' he added, 'did you hear about Guelfi?'

'Yeah,' Akito said glad Seisuke had changed topic, 'I can't believe he won his first GP2 race in Monaco.'

'They're racing in Istambul next, aren't they?' Seisuke asked.

'Yep,' Akito said, 'it's this weekend. I'm going to miss the race because of the time difference. As you know we'll be racing in Motegi and there's no way my father will let me stay up to watch the GP2 race live.'

'Well, you do have to be rested for your own race,' Seisuke pointed out.

'I know,' Akito said, 'but it's okay, in September they'll be racing in Monza and I don't have a race on that weekend. I can't wait to see him racing in his home course, I'll bet you anything that he'll win there too.'

'Wasn't he born near the circuit itself?' Seisuke asked him.

'Yeah,' Akito said, 'he was born in Sesto San Giovanni, it's less than five kilometres south of Monza.'

'So it really will be his home race,' Seisuke commented, 'it's a bit like Motegi for you, isn't it?'

'Yeah,' Akito repeated, 'I guess you could say that Motegi is my home course now.'

'In that case,' Seisuke said, 'I take you'll score the fourth win of the season then.'

'I hope so,' Akito replied, 'but I'm not so sure, the competition is pretty fierce.'

'Come on,' Seisuke protested, 'don't sound so insecure, you've entered in what, ten races so far?'

'Yes,' Akito replied.

'And how many have you failed to finish?'

'Er…'

'None,' Seisuke replied for him, 'your car is indestructible and so is your legendary good luck.'

'That's the problem, you see?' Akito said, 'I've just been very lucky so far and I know that sooner or later I'll run out of it. After all, I've seen it happening to the best drivers, even Guelfi-san had a couple of mechanical failures and even some accidents last year.'

'That's true,' Seisuke said.

'And I'm still very far from being at his level,' Akito added.

'He is pretty strong, isn't he?' Seisuke asked.

'Let's put it this way,' Akito replied, 'by the time I make it to GP2, if I ever do that is, I'm sure he'll already be in F1. At this rate it'll be years before we can keep the promise we made to race each other again.'

'Better later than never,' Seisuke commented.

'That's true too,' Akito admitted.

Just then they saw Kyosuke's RZ-1 coming into the car park followed by Junya's S18 and soon the two older men joined Seisuke and Akito who felt grateful to see that Junya seemed to be in a very good mood today.

'So,' Seisuke asked him, 'how's the work coming along?'

'Great,' Junya replied while watching the Vera, 'I'll be taking it for a spin up Mt Akagi one of these nights.'

'Can't you give us a hint?' Akito tried asking.

'No way,' Junya said and he was enjoying himself so much he even forgot to be mean to him.

'I'll tell you one thing,' Kyosuke said and before Junya could protest, he added, 'you'll all be very surprised.'

'Oh!' Seisuke exclaimed sounding excited, 'I can't wait to see the mystery car!'

That same evening, at the Fujiwara residence, Akito enjoyed his mother's home cooked meals even more than he usually did for two reasons. One, his grandfather Bunta was there having invited himself to dinner. Two, his girlfriend Ryoko was also there and she was going to stay overnight for the first time ever. Just thinking about it made Akito feel a bit hot and that had nothing to do with the warmer external temperature.

'Are you alright?' he heard his father asking him after dinner.

'Yeah,' Akito replied all too quickly.

'Alright,' Natsuki said coming back from the kitchen, 'Haruko darling, it's time for your bath.'

'Already?' the eight year old asked.

'Yes,' Natsuki replied then, glancing at Ryoko, she asked, 'would you like to have your bath now too?'

'Yes, please,' Ryoko replied and looking at Haruko, she smiled and said, 'do you mind if we share it?'

'Nope,' Haruko replied returning the smile.

'Cool,' Ryoko said, 'if you want, I can even help you wash your hair.'

'Alright,' Haruko replied, 'but only if you don't pull too hard with the comb. Mum always hurts me.'

'That's not true,' Natsuki defended herself.

'It is,' Haruko countered.

'Alright,' Takumi intervened looking at his daughter, 'you better hurry up, it's getting past your bedtime.'

'Yes Daddy,' Haruko said giving him the sort of smile which nearly always got her out of trouble.

Nevertheless, she got up from the sofa and with Ryoko following her, the two girls left the room with Akito suddenly wishing that he could swap places with his little sister. His face must have shown something for, right at that moment, Akito heard his grandfather letting out a soft chuckle which made him look at him.

'What?' Akito asked.

'Nothing,' a highly amused Bunta replied.

'Akito,' an oblivious Takumi said, 'you should be getting ready to go to bed too.'

'Yep,' he replied and, eager to escape his grandfather's stare, he got up and went up to his room too.

Using the smaller bathroom they had for the guests, Akito started cleaning his teeth before he used a bit of cold water to calm himself down a bit. He then walked to his room and, stripping as quickly as possible, he got in bed, switched the lights off and found himself wishing he could also switch his brain off so that he could stop the mental picture he had of Ryoko while he heard the splashing noises coming from the main bathroom.

Akito felt very shocked and a little disgusted with himself for the not so pure thoughts those images produced in him and he started wondering when exactly he had started feeling so physical about Ryoko.

'Sleep,' he muttered, 'I need to sleep.'

That night it took him a lot longer than usual for his brain to shut down and when at four thirty in the morning the alarm clock woke him up, Akito felt like he had slept for just a few minutes and his body was as tired as if he'd put himself through the gym's power circuit a dozen times in a row. With a sigh, he pressed the button to stop the buzzing sound and, only then, he remembered the reason why he'd slept so poorly: Ryoko was home, probably waiting for him to eat breakfast together.

That thought woke him up a lot more effectively than any alarm clock.

Jumping out of bed and taking the same jeans he'd worn the previous day, he put a random t-shirt on and hurried downstairs making as little noise as possible. There, in the kitchen, he found an already showered and dressed Ryoko preparing some toasts while Takumi looked after the coffee machine.

'Good morning son,' he said.

'Hi,' he replied.

'You're not ready yet,' Ryoko observed.

'Nope,' Akito replied, 'I wanted to eat breakfast first.'

'Here,' Takumi said offering him a bowl of rice, 'Ryoko's also helped me make you some grilled fish.'

'Thanks,' Akito said while he took the plate his girlfriend was giving him.

'You're welcome,' Ryoko said and for some reason she let out a soft chuckle.

'What's up?' he asked her.

'Nothing,' she replied, 'I just didn't know that you liked eating a traditional Japanese breakfast.'

'I usually don't,' Akito explained, 'but I like eating it during the weekends when I race.'

'I see,' Ryoko said as if she was making a mental note.

'Ryoko-chan,' Takumi said, 'how do you take your coffee?'

'Black with one sugar, please,' she replied.

The three people ate their breakfast chatting about trivial things and Akito was having such a good time that he felt rather sad when he had to go back upstairs in order to shower and get ready to leave. It was probably because of this that he broke his own speed record and made it downstairs just ten minutes later.

'You're all set already?' his father asked him looking surprised.

'Yep,' Akito replied, 'let's go or we'll be late.'

Walking to the house's exit ahead of them, Akito failed to notice the amused glance his father and girlfriend exchanged and he didn't notice either the weird look his father gave him when, instead of going to the passenger's side as he usually did, he instinctively wanted to join Ryoko at the backseat of the old Impreza.

'Where are you going?' Takumi asked him.

'Ah,' he gasped, 'sorry…'

'Hey,' he warned, 'you better concentrate or else…'

'Yes, sir,' Akito said snapping to attention.

Leaving a very amused Ryoko at the back, he went to seat besides his father and soon enough, they were on their way to the Tochigi prefecture. They would meet half-way with the members of the PIAA-Tanaka team and, from there, they would follow the team's truck all the way to the Twin Ring Motegi Circuit.

'Wow,' Ryoko gasped, 'it's not even half six in the morning and it's already packed.'

'There are a lot of races this weekend,' Takumi explained.

Akito just observed the amount of trucks, vans and other vehicles which were trying to make their way in and around the parking area next to the paddock. Because of this mayhem, it took them a while to find the space the Federation had assigned to the F3 teams and, by the time they parked, it was quarter to seven.

'Alright,' Tanaka-san said, 'you should start getting ready, the first practice session starts at eight.'

'What about the pre-race meeting?' Akito asked him.

'It'll be right after practice,' Tanaka-san replied, 'I've been told that due to the high amount of events, they've had to change the schedule a bit to make sure the meeting rooms wouldn't get overbooked.'

'Alright,' Akito replied and he found himself glancing at his girlfriend.

'I'll wait for you here,' Ryoko told him pointing at the Impreza.

'Okay,' Akito said.

Being back in a racing track and seeing the professional behaviour of his own team made it possible for Akito to temporarily forget about his beautiful girlfriend so that he could start concentrating in the job he was supposed to do. Taking his bag from the Subaru, he made his way to the changing rooms to get suited up and by the time he walked back to the parking area, he saw that his team had already unpacked most of the things they would need for the weekend, including the black and white Dallara used by the team.

'Fujiwara-kun,' one of the mechanics called him while they pushed the car into their pitbox.

'Coming,' he said giving Ryoko an apologetic smile.

'Be careful,' she told him.

'I will be,' Akito replied.

At exactly ten minutes to eight, he lowered himself into the car and less than five minutes later, the mechanics started up the engine and Akito got ready for his first run around Motegi. He had never raced there before but he knew the configuration of the circuit well enough to somehow get all the shifting and braking points right and, by the time he finished the first lap out, he decided that he liked that track.

'How's the car?' Tanaka-san asked him over the radio.

'Perfect,' Akito replied, 'as usual.'

Darting past the main straight, he followed the first corner, leaving the oval part of the track behind. The F3 race used just three fourths of the four point eight kilometre long course which meant that every time they went around the circuit they covered around three point six kilometres. Because of this, on Saturday the race would be twenty four laps long while the following round would be four laps longer than that.

Not that it mattered.

Seeing how much fun that circuit was, Akito would have been perfectly happy to do a hundred laps.

Unfortunately, the half an hour practice was over all too soon and Akito found himself following Minamoto Yukio as the two drivers made their way back into the pitlane. He then got into his team's pitbox and climbing out of the Dallara, he removed his helmet and HANS device and, smiling at his mechanics, he said:

'Everything is great, please don't do anything to the car.'

Seeing the relieved expressions on his mechanics' faces almost made him laugh.

'Alright,' Tanaka-san said, 'we should go to the meeting now but first I need to talk to somebody.'

'Okay,' Akito said, 'shall I wait for you here?'

'Yes,' the Team Manager replied before leaving in a bit of a hurry.

Akito was going to turn around to speak to his father and Ryoko when he saw a journalist from the Fuji TV channel called Tomori. Akito relaxed for he knew the guy and, out of all the journalists he had spoken to, Tomori quite easily was the nicest of the lot. For this reason, he smiled at the guy when he greeted him:

'Good morning, Tomori-san.'

'Good morning, Fujiwara-kun,' the man replied frowning a little, 'that's weird,' he then said.

'What is?' Akito asked him now feeling a little confused.

'You're looking awfully happy, considering,' Tomori said.

'Considering what?' Akito replied.

'What?' Tomori asked, 'you don't know?'

'Know what?' Akito asked and, by then, his mechanics, his father and even Ryoko were wondering too.

'I guess it really is breaking news,' Tomori replied looking very serious.

'Tomori-san,' Akito said now getting worried, 'what's happened?'

'I can't believe no one has told you yet,' Tomori said.

'Tomori-san…'

'Yesterday,' the journalist said, 'during the first of the GP2 practice sessions, Andrea Guelfi crashed his car.'

'What?' Akito gasped and somehow he managed to ask, 'did he get hurt?'

Tomori looked like, for once, he was reluctant to do his job:

'Guelfi died at the hospital less than three hours ago.'

_To be continued…_


	48. Chapter Forty Seven

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty Seven_

In spite of the general racket surrounding him, Akito could only hear a ringing sound in his ears together with a thumping noise which seemed to be increasing its pace. Quickly falling into a semi-catatonic state, Akito failed to realise that the thumps he heard were the beats of his own heart which was beginning to feel like it had been covered by frost.

'Akito,' Takumi called him, 'Akito!'

'I'm sorry,' a worried Tamori said, 'I didn't know he…'

'It's okay,' Takumi said placing both of his hands onto his son's shoulders, 'please just leave us alone now.'

'Of course,' Tamori half-whispered and taking a couple of steps backwards, he left the PIAA-Tanaka pitbox.

'Akito,' Takumi tried again, 'hey…'

'Baby…' a distressed Ryoko said.

'He can't be dead,' Akito finally mumbled then, zeroing on his father's face with a terrible expression on his own, he shook his head and said, 'Dad, please tell me I heard wrong…please…'

'I'm sorry son,' Takumi said trying to remain calm.

'What's happening in here?' they all heard Tanaka-san's voice.

One of team's mechanics had the mercy of explaining to the boss what Tamori had just told them.

'Ah that,' Tanaka-san said sounding sorry, 'I just heard it too. What a tragedy, the poor guy was only twenty one.'

'Akito,' Takumi tried again, 'pull yourself together son.'

'Dad…'

'You've got a job to do now,' Takumi said firmly, 'we'll feel bad about this later, do you understand me?'

'But Dad…'

'Do you understand me?' Takumi repeated sounding sterner still.

'Yeah,' Akito reply.

'Alright,' Takumi said, 'now go to the meeting, listen to what the race director says and then come back here for your second practice session. Once you've done what you have to do we'll go home and deal with this.'

'Dad…'

'Go,' Takumi ordered.

Akito stared at his father for an instant before he realised that it was easier to obey his father rather than to allow himself to think of what Tomori had just told him. He exchanged a quick glance with a very concerned looking Ryoko, closed his eyes for an instant and, forcing himself to move, he walked towards his boss.

'I'm ready to go,' Akito told him.

The Team Manager didn't say anything to that, instead, he just walked away with his driver in total silence.

'Takumi-san,' Ryoko finally allowed herself to speak sounding upset, 'why were you so cold with Akito?'

'I had to,' was Takumi's simple answer.

'But…'

'Ryoko-chan,' Takumi interrupted her gently, 'if we don't get him to focus now, he will be useless in the car.'

'But, Takumi-san…'

'I know it sounds cruel,' Takumi said, 'but it's the only way we'll get him through the day, okay?'

'Okay,' Ryoko replied deciding to trust her future father-in-law.

Meanwhile Akito found himself falling into some sort of automatic pilot mode which prevented him from noticing that, among the other F3 drivers in the room, he wasn't the only one to whom the news of Andrea Guelfi's death had affected in one way or another. If he had looked properly, he would have seen that one Minamoto Yukio looked almost as badly hit as he did. Again, the guy had known Guelfi for a long time.

Even the race director seemed to want to make the meeting even shorter than usual and within less than fifteen minutes, all the issues had been covered and most of the drivers and team managers started making their way back into the paddock and when nearly an hour later they had to start the second practice session it looked like they all wished they could just go home instead.

Alas, the show did really have to go on and Akito was about to climb into his single-seater when his Team Manager walked up to him and said:

'You told us earlier that the car was perfect as it is, right?'

'Yes,' Akito replied.

'Alright,' Tanaka said, 'then I want you to go out there, do a couple of laps nice and slow and come back in.'

'Tanaka-san?' Akito asked.

'There's no need to push things more than they need to,' Tanaka said.

Everyone there got the distinct impression that he wasn't talking about the car's mechanics.

'Alright,' Akito agreed.

Sliding into the cockpit, he waited until they removed the warming blankets off the tyres and without allowing himself to think about anything other than the task at hand, Akito rolled the car out of the pitbox and onto the pitlane. Then, just as Tanaka had instructed him, he proceeded to cover the three point six kilometres long track twice making the car go at less than sixty percent of its actual potential. With that done, he drove the car back into the pitlane.

'Okay,' Tanaka said when Akito got out of the Dallara, 'you can go home now.'

'But…'

'Don't worry about the journalists,' Tanaka said, 'I'm sure they can wait until tomorrow.'

'Alright,' Akito said, 'and thank you.'

'No problem,' Tanaka said then, he forced himself to add, 'I'll need you to be one hundred percent focused for tomorrow's qualifying and the first race so make sure you properly deal with everything you need to deal with tonight, okay?'

'I will,' Akito promised.

'Let's go home,' Takumi said.

Following the two Fujiwara, Ryoko noticed how Takumi led a still suited up Akito back to the Impreza as quickly as he could, passing by several journalists on their way to the car but without stopping to talk to any of them. Hurrying to get into her seat, she waited until Takumi and Akito were onboard too and then they were off.

'Akito,' she heard Takumi say, 'son...'

'Can I cry now?' Akito asked with a very strained sounding voice.

'Not yet, Takumi replied, 'wait until we're out of the circuit.'

Ryoko was shocked to hear that but chose to remain silent wishing she could do something, anything, which would make Akito feel a little better but, by the time they got out of the Twin Ring Motegi, she felt shocked when a couple of tears started rolling down her own cheeks. Soon both Ryoko and Akito started a quiet weeping which only increased its intensity as they got further away from the circuit's facilities.

They only started calming down when they reached the part of Maebashi where the Takahashi family had their residence but Ryoko still had to be told by Takumi that they were already parked outside of the house.

'Akito…' she said sniffing a little.

'He'll call you later,' Takumi said, 'I think that right now he needs a bit of space.'

'Of course,' Ryoko agreed.

She moved forward on her seat and placed her hand onto Akito's right shoulder giving it a little squeeze.

'I'm here if you need me, okay?'

'Yeah,' Akito whispered sounding miserable, 'thank you.'

Ryoko just nodded and, trying to ignore the fact that Akito's father was just half a metre away, she said:

'I love you.'

Without waiting for his answer, the girl just opened the Impreza's door and, climbing out of it, she rushed to get into her home hearing the Impreza driving away just as she shut the main entrance's door behind her.

'Ryoko?' she then heard Kyosuke's voice, 'is that you?'

'Yeah,' she replied.

Her two cousins together with Kizuna came out of the home's living room with equally worried expressions.

'I take you heard,' Ryoko said flatly.

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied, 'where's Akito?'

'He's going home with his father,' Ryoko said, 'Takumi-san asked me to give him some space.'

'Of course,' Kyosuke said.

'Honey,' Kizuna added noticing Ryoko's tear stained face, 'are you alright?'

'No,' she muttered and, just then, she rushed towards the half-American girl, crushing herself against her.

'Ryoko,' Kizuna whispered.

'He was so sad,' Ryoko mumbled, her voice muffled against Kizuna's chest, 'and I couldn't do anything.'

'We should call him,' Seisuke said while Kizuna tried to calm Ryoko down.

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'we should let his father help him deal with it. If he needs us, he'll call us himself.'

Half an hour later, Akito and his father walked into their home where they found Bunta sitting on his usual armchair looking like he'd been waiting for them. Natsuki and Haruko were both out of the house so the three generations of Fujiwara men found themselves home alone.

'Hey kiddo,' Bunta said seeing his grandson, 'come and sit there.'

Akito complied with the order while Takumi left his son's bag by the couch, taking a seat next to him.

'Grandpa…'

'I heard what happened,' the old man said, 'and I just wanted to ask you one thing.'

'Sure,' Akito asked looking at his father with a puzzled expression on his face.

'Motorsports are dangerous,' Bunta started, 'you know that, right?'

'Of course,' Akito replied.

'And you know that every now and then there will be accidents and sometimes in those accidents people will die and that it might happen that you knew or even liked the person who died. You know that too, right?'

'Yeah, I guess,' Akito said.

'Well,' Bunta continued, 'what I want to ask you is simple enough: are you prepared to accept that risk?'

Akito stared at his grandfather as if he failed to understand the question.

'Son,' Takumi said, 'what your grandfather wants to know is if you're ready to go to the circuit tomorrow and do your best at the race like you usually do in spite of what has happened to Andrea Guelfi.'

'Dad…'

'Akito,' Bunta interrupted him, 'if you can't do that, I think it's better if you stop racing altogether.'

'What?' Akito gasped.

'You'll be a danger to yourself and to other racers if you aren't capable of leaving certain feelings out of the cockpit so, I'm asking you again, are you prepared to accept all the risks involved in motor racing?'

Akito remained silent for a moment then, slowly, he nodded.

'I am,' he finally said.

'That's what I wanted to hear,' Bunta said getting up from the armchair.

'Where are you going?' Akito asked him.

'I've done what I came here to do,' Bunta replied, 'I'm going to go home and let your father do his own job.'

With that and before they could do anything to prevent it, the old man ruffled his grandson's hair and then he just walked out of the living room leaving both Takumi and Akito feeling slightly taken aback. Only when they both recovered from the shock, Akito remembered the reason that had brought his grandfather into their home in the first place.

'Son,' Takumi started.

'Dad,' he said instead, 'can I ask you something?'

'Sure,' Takumi replied.

'Did anyone you knew ever die when you were actively racing?'

Takumi shook his head.

'No,' he said, 'but I know that your grandfather had a similar experience when he was younger.'

'Really?' Akito asked him.

'Yeah,' Takumi replied, 'back in those days crashing a car was even more dangerous than it is now.'

'I know,' Akito said.

'What your grandfather said is true though,' Takumi said, 'please promise me that you'll stay focused tomorrow.'

'I will,' Akito promised.

'I'm glad to hear that,' Takumi said then, getting up, he said, 'let's go and get some sleep while we can.'

Akito agreed and following his father they both went into their bedrooms and, in spite of the fact that it was the middle of the day, both were so tired that they fell asleep the instant their heads touched the pillow waking up only a few hours later when Natsuki and Haruko got back from school. Takumi hurried to explain what had happened to his wife who, taking charge of the situation, made sure Akito was kept sufficiently distracted.

The morning after both father and son travelled back to the circuit surrounded by a very different, almost business-like atmosphere, which had nothing to do with the excited mood which had accompanied Akito just the previous day. Again, this time Ryoko wasn't there with him because she had her activities as a member of her school's student council.

'I can cancel them if you want,' Ryoko had told him the previous evening over the phone.

'No,' Akito said, 'I'd like for things to be as normal as possible.'

'Alright,' Ryoko replied.

'Ryoko,' he said, 'you're still going to come home for dinner tomorrow night, aren't you?'

'Of course,' Ryoko replied.

'Okay,' Akito said, 'because I will really need to see you.'

Ryoko had felt very emotional hearing that and had answered:

'I'll need to see you too.'

Bringing his attention back to the present, Akito clutched the omamori Ryoko had given him during his karting days and, closing his eyes for a bit, he took a few deep calming breaths readying himself for the day.

'Okay,' he said once he was done, 'I can do this.'

'Of course you can,' Takumi said sounding a little relieved.

A few hours later, Kyosuke and Seisuke were sitting on the sofa of their home's living room watching the sports TV channel that was currently showing the hightlights of the qualifying sessions for the fifth and sixth rounds of the F3 championship in the Twin Ring Motegi. Kizuna, Eiji, Junya and Shinji were also there and they were all surprised to see that, in spite of everything, Akito still had managed to do reasonably well.

'He's fourth for today's race,' Seisuke commented.

'That's alright,' Kyosuke said, 'he was fourth in the previous race and he ended up winning, didn't he?'

'Yeah,' Seisuke said.

'It's really too bad though,' Eiji said, 'I mean, how old was that Guelfi guy?'

'Just a year older than we are,' Kyosuke replied.

'He was so young,' Kizuna whispered.

'I know,' Kyosuke said, 'I can't even imagine what his parents must be feeling like right now.'

'Or his girlfriend,' Seisuke added.

'Did he have one?' Eiji asked.

'I think he did,' Seisuke said, 'Akito said he always saw him with the same girl last year.'

'It's starting,' Junya spoke all of a sudden.

Kyosuke glanced at him before looking at the TV screen. He had been fairly surprised when Junya had decided to join in when he and Seisuke had invited Eiji to watch the F3 race at their home since the older guy usually did his best to avoid having to watch Akito racing. Watching Shinji's interested expression kind of convinced him that maybe Junya was just humouring his protégé, either way, he stopped thinking about that and, instead, he concentrated in the twenty eight cars which were now starting their formation lap.

'Is Ryoko going to watch the race?' he heard Kizuna asking him.

'I think so,' he replied, 'she said she'd use one of the TV sets at her school.'

'I hope she won't be alone,' Kizuna commented.

'She's not,' Seisuke said, 'she'll be with her fellow student council members.'

'Yayoi-chan is a member too, isn't she?' Kyosuke asked referring to Ryoko's best friend.

'I think so,' Seisuke said.

They stopped talking when they saw that the cars were now in position and that the race director was about to commence the proceedings that would get the race started. Less than five seconds later, the overhead semaphore turned red and a few more seconds after that, all five red lights got replaced by five green ones.

The race had started.

Six pairs of eyes watched as Akito's car veered towards the outside of the track trying to overtake the NOW MOTORSPORTS car he had in front of him while keeping Hideki's Team TOMs car behind him. The manoeuvre was successful and within the first corner, Akito was already in third place and chasing Yukio's Avangarde Racing's Dallara. Judging by his driving style, it appeared as everything was business as usual.

'Thank god,' Kizuna commented.

'It's still too early,' Junya said.

'That's right,' Kyosuke agreed making Junya smile a little.

Just then Akito moved again and just as he and Yukio exited the chicane, Akito passed him in a clean manoeuvre which put him in second place. He only had the Toda Racing car driven by Naoki Kawamura who had left the NOW MOTORSPORTS team to serve as Andrea Guelfi's replacement. Seeing Akito's black and white PIAA-Tanaka car driving behind the red Toda Racing took them all on a trip down memory lane.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'he's got to be feeling pretty weird right now.'

'I bet he is,' Kyosuke agreed.

Their prediction was spot on and they watched their best friend driving around the first few laps as if he felt reluctant to get any closer to the car in first position. The fact that he kept the same distance in seconds lap after lap meant that there were no problems with his car and also that it was fast enough to try and overtake Naoki but, with half of the race gone, Akito seemed like he had no intentions of doing such thing.

'What's wrong with him?' Shinji asked.

'No idea,' Junya replied.

'Why doesn't he overtake him?' Shinji insisted.

Just at that moment, Akito seemed to finally made his mind up and as he visibly increased his pace, the gap between his car and the Toda Racing's started dwarfing. Just then, the commentator said that Akito had just received instructions from his team telling him to stop playing it safe and to start racing seriously.

The Takahashi brothers easily figured that such a direct order could only come from Takumi himself and smiling to one another, they saw as Akito launched his single-seater along the track's main straight to start what was the seventeenth lap out of twenty four. Less than half a lap later, he was already stuck to the back of Naoki's car and by the time they got to Motegi's hairpin, Akito was ready to stage his first attack.

Waiting until both cars had cleared the hairpin, Akito went slightly wide and started levelling with Naoki's car when the Toda Racing driver closed the gap just in time for the end of the circuit's secondary straight. There, at the tenth turn, he even managed to put a little distance between his car and that of Akito but he lost the advantage as soon as they cleared that and the last corner of the track before the main straight.

They had covered half of its length when Akito moved again, this time towards the pitlane's wall and in what was one of his trademark kamikaze-like move, he squeezed his car in between that and Naoki's car and at the first turn, a wide right hander, Akito finally managed to get his car in first place keeping that position throughout the final six laps of the race. Less than ten minutes later, they watched him cross the finish line.

'YES!' Kizuna found herself shouting.

'He's done it!' Seisuke exclaimed smiling happily.

'That punk,' Kyosuke complained, 'to think I was worried about him.'

'I guess he's alright after all,' Eiji commented.

Junya and Shinji remained silent for slightly different reasons, the former because he would rather die than to accept that Akito had really pulled a masterpiece of a race, Shinji because he was feeling a little confused.

Ten minutes later they watched Akito climb into the first position of the podium and, only then, they saw his face. He looked extremely serious and even when they gave him the metallic plate which served as trophy, he refused to smile as he usually did when he won a race. He then waited for all the podium formalities to be over and, leaving the bottle of champagne untouched, he walked down and left immediately after that.

'I guess he wasn't in a festive mood,' Eiji said pointing out the obvious.

'Yeah, well,' Seisuke replied, 'you saw the other two racers, it's not like they looked much happier either.'

The press conference started just a few minutes later and they all watched as Akito, Naoki and Hideki took their places in front of the journalists. Akito was even more serious than he'd been earlier on and when the circuit's press officer indicated for the questions to start, they saw his face looking all tense.

'Fujiwara-kun,' one of the Nikkan Sports reporters started, 'congratulations, this is your fourth win this year.'

'Thanks,' Akito managed to say.

'We heard that your team issued you with a very particular order,' the guy said, 'were you having problems?'

'No,' Akito replied, 'the car has been perfect all weekend.'

'What happened then?' the journalist asked.

'Nothing,' Akito forced himself to reply.

'We all heard the tragic news,' another journalist, from the Sanspo newspaper said, 'did that affect your concentration in any way?'

Akito remained silent for a bit then, he opened his mouth to speak and chocking out a lie, he said:

'No, I was as focused as I usually am.'

'Oh,' the journalist gasped, 'I was under the impression that Guelfi-san and you had become fairly close.'

This time Akito refused to reply.

'In fact,' the journalist continued, 'there was a rumour that you two had promised to race each other again, is that true?'

A few people at the press conference room looked at the journalist as if they could not believe their ears and Kyosuke heard his younger brother swearing at the insensitivity of the guy while Kizuna and Eiji stared at the screen in shock. Just then, without any previous warning, Akito's face cringed a bit and before he could prevent it, a couple of tears started rolling down his cheeks. He did try covering his face but it was only too obvious that the poor kid was crying.

'Oh wow,' Shinji said all of a sudden, 'how embarrassing is that?'

At the same time, Kyosuke, Seisuke, Kizuna and Eiji all told him to shut up.

Even Junya glared at him and that made Shinji to instantly revert to his old withdrawn self.

'I'm sorry,' he mumbled.

Nobody paid attention to him because they were all watching while Naoki had the goodness to ask the journalists to give Akito a break and then the Nikkan Sports reporter started asking him some questions instead. In the end, Akito was only able to say a quick "bye" to the journalists before he was taken out of the room by his team's press officer and when a few minutes later they started showing the highlights of the race, the TV commentators appeared both looking like they were ashamed of their colleague's insensitive behaviour.

'Turn that off,' Kysouke ordered to his younger brother who was happy to comply.

'That idiot of a journalist,' Kizuna complained, 'did he have no tact whatsoever?'

'Apparently not,' Eiji said, 'I can't believe he asked Akito something like that.'

'What was he trying to achieve anyway?' Seisuke asked.

'No idea,' Kyosuke replied, 'but for Akito to break down like that…'

'I know,' Seisuke said, 'Aniki, I know you said we need to leave this to Takumi-san but, I think…'

'Alright,' Junya interrupted him getting up all of a sudden, 'we're off.'

'Junya…'

'Thanks for the hospitality,' Junya told Kyosuke sounding awfully formal, 'but Shinji and I got stuff to do.'

With that, Shinji got up too and an instant later, they were both out of the house.

'What's up with him now?' Eiji asked.

'I don't know,' Kyosuke replied too worried about Akito to be able to care.

At the same time, Junya climbed behind the wheel of his S18 and turning to Shinji, he said:

'What you said back there was very stupid. Do you want to get in the Golden Arrows or not?'

'Of course,' Shinji replied looking at him wide-eyed.

'Then you'll do well to remember that, for some reason, Kyosuke likes that br...likes Akito,' Junya said, 'and that if you insult him or offend him in any way, Kyosuke's definitely not going to be impressed with you.'

'I'm sorry,' Shinji said and, right at that moment, he remembered the conversation he'd had with Akito at the Centre. Somehow, he found himself hoping that the young racer would not go and report it to Kyosuke. He was so worried about that that he nearly missed what Junya said next:

'I'm really close to achieving my target and I don't want you to go and ruin everything.'

'I won't,' a subdued Shinji promised.

'That's a good boy,' Junya said and, this time, he smiled at him, 'just two more weeks to go.'

He turned the engine on and was driving down the Takahashi's private lane when Shinji dared to ask:

'Junya-san, you're going to challenge Kyosuke-san to a race, aren't you?'

Junya stared at his protégé for a bit before he nodded.

'That's right,' he said.

'But,' Shinji continued, 'isn't Kyosuke-san one of the strongest racers of the region?'

'He _is_ the strongest racer around here,' Junya replied.

'Then,' Shinji said, 'if you beat him, won't that make you the strongest one?'

'Not "if" Shinji,' Junya corrected him, 'but "when" I beat him.'

'What will you do then?' Shinji asked.

'What do you mean?'

'If…no, when you beat Kyosuke-san, will you stay in the Golden Arrows?'

'Of course,' Junya replied, 'our team has been building an excellent reputation, it'd be stupid to leave it now.'

'But then,' Shinji said, 'why do you want to beat Kyosuke-san?'

'Easy,' Junya replied with a malicious smile, 'this way everyone will know who the real leader is.'

_To be continued…_


	49. Chapter Forty Eight

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty Eight_

On Saturday May 28th 2022 at exactly eighteen hundred hours, Operation Cheer Akito Up started.

Kyosuke parked his RZ-1 right in front of the Fujiwara residence in Shibukawa while Seisuke found a parking space for his Mazda nearby in the quiet suburban street where their best friend lived and soon, the two brothers, their cousin Ryoko and Kizuna found themselves at the front door of the two floor house. There, Ryoko rang the bell.

'Coming!' they heard Natsuki's voice.

She opened the door expecting to find only Ryoko and her surprise finding all four of them was obvious.

'Good evening, Natsuki-san,' said a smiling Ryoko.

'Hello Ryoko-chan,' Natsuki replied, 'and everyone else too.'

'We're sorry for intruding,' Kyosuke said, 'but we'd like to see Akito, if you don't mind.'

'No,' Natsuki hurried to say, 'of course not. Please do come in, I'll go and tell him you're here.'

The four of them stepped into the house pausing only to remove their shoes and, walking into the living room, they found little Haruko there watching TV while her father Takumi read the evening paper.

'Hey guys,' the man said, 'I didn't know you'd be coming.'

'Neither did we,' Kyosuke replied with a small smile, 'we're being spontaneous.'

'You?' Takumi asked him raising an eyebrow, 'spontaneous?'

'It's been known to happen,' Kyosuke said provoking a chuckle in his three companions.

Just then, Natsuki reappeared with Akito and all hilarity died when they saw his expression. He looked like he'd been though hell and back and hadn't enjoyed the experience. Ryoko was the first to find her voice.

'Hi baby,' she said.

'Hey,' Akito replied then, glancing at everyone else, he smiled a little and said, 'are you staying for dinner?'

'That's the idea,' Seisuke said.

'If it's not too much trouble,' Kizuna added.

'Of course not,' Natsuki said then, looking at her husband, she added, 'shall we order some sushi?'

Takumi nodded and said:

'Why not?'

'Sushi?' Haruko asked, the word finally getting her attention away from the TV.

'Yes,' Natsuki replied, 'why don't you come with me to the kitchen so we can choose what to order?'

The girl sprang up with admirable agility and soon both mother and daughter were gone while Takumi reassumed his reading. Akito shook his head once before he pointed at the cream coloured sofa and said:

'Please sit down, I'll go and get us something to drink.'

Complying with the request, Kyosuke, Seisuke and Kizuna sat down while Ryoko followed Akito to the kitchen so that she could help her boyfriend carry the six glasses of iced tea. They brought the tray back to the living room and after Akito offered one of the glasses to his father, he set the tray down onto the living room's low table and, taking a seat on his grandfather's favourite armchair, he waited for someone to speak.

'So,' Kyosuke started, 'how are you doing?'

'Not great,' Akito replied honestly.

'We thought so,' Seisuke said.

'That's why you're here, right?' Akito asked them gently.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied.

'Thanks,' Akito said smiling gratefully, 'I've had a very crappy day.'

'We saw that,' Kizuna said, 'which is why we'd like to ask you if there's anything we can do to help you.'

Akito looked at the older girl for a bit then, he glanced quickly at his girlfriend and her two cousins.

'There is,' he answered.

'Name it,' Seisuke said eagerly.

'Is there anything we could do to distract me for a bit?' Akito asked, 'I'm willing to do anything you like.'

'Anything?' Ryoko asked him.

'Anything,' Akito confirmed.

'In that case,' she said, 'there's something we could do which I'm sure it would take your mind off things for a bit. Mind you, it does require driving there and we'll need the entire day but I'm sure it'll be worth it.'

'Baby cousin,' Seisuke said, 'what's in your mind?'

'Disneyland,' Ryoko replied then, noticing Kyosuke's frown, she added, 'Kizuna's never been there, has she?'

'No, I haven't,' the girl replied.

'But you would like to go, wouldn't you?' Ryoko asked her intently.

'Of course,' Kizuna replied, 'who doesn't want to go to Disneyland?'

Kyosuke looked down in between his slippers.

'Alright,' Seisuke said, 'it's decided then. When is that going to happen?'

'The sooner the better,' Ryoko replied, 'right Akito?'

'Yes please,' the young racer replied.

'I take you approve of the plan then,' Kyosuke asked him looking only a little desperate.

'Yes,' Akito replied, he glanced at Ryoko and smiled at her, 'it's a wonderful idea, just what I needed.'

The girl's grin became even wider.

'Alright,' she said, 'we'll go this Saturday, is that alright Takumi-san?'

'Yeah, of course,' the man replied looking a little flustered.

'Great,' Ryoko said, 'why don't you invite Kaori along?' she then asked Seisuke, 'then we'd be three couples.'

'Yep, I'll do that,' Seisuke agreed.

Just then, Natsuki and Haruko arrived saying that the sushi would be there shortly and that, combined with the fact that his friends where there and that they had come up with a great plan, made it possible for Akito to go to bed and get up the next morning feeling like he could, after all, go back to the Twin Ring Motegi and face the press without feeling like running away as fast as he could.

Thanks to that Akito was able to start Sunday's race with the peace of mind he needed to cover the twenty eight laps and even though he failed to win the race, finishing a very decent fourth place, he was rather pleased when his Team Manager patted him on his shoulder and told him that he'd done a great job, that he was very happy with the weekend's results and they could all go home and get some well deserved rest.

The following Saturday, very early in the morning, Akito climbed into the passenger seat of Kyosuke's RZ-1 so that they could drive back to Maebashi where Kizuna and Ryoko waited for them in the 350Z at the usual petrol station located by the entrance of the Kan'Etsu Expressway. Seisuke and Kaori arrived there a couple of minutes later and soon all three cars were on their way to Urayasu, in the Chiba Prefecture.

'Kyosuke,' Akito said while they travelled and after checking that the car's radio was turned off.

'Yes?'

'You're not exactly into theme parks, are you?' Akito asked him.

'Not really,' Kyosuke said honestly, 'but it's okay, it'll be fun.'

'Thank you for doing this for me,' Akito said sounding very serious.

'Don't mention it,' Kyosuke replied then, he added, 'is there any attraction you're looking forward to?'

Akito thought about it and said:

'Yes, there is. I'd love to ride on the Space Mountain and then there's the Big Thunder Mountain and the Splash Mountain and…'

Kyosuke let out a soft chuckle and said:

'Alright, we'll go and see all of those mountains, okay?'

Seeing Akito's smile made him think that maybe this trip to Disneyland had not been such a terrible idea and that, surprisingly enough, Akito could still bring himself to enjoy things like the kid he was supposed to be.

Determined to keep that happy expression on Akito's face for the entire day, Kyosuke was more than prepared to put up with being dragged around the immense theme park, with Seisuke and Akito fully intended on trying every single ride at least once while Ryoko and Kaori got lost in the myriad of shops scattered throughout the whole area, both looking like they were having a hard time to decide which one to go and see first. Kizuna was also enjoying herself but Kyosuke noticed that his girlfriend was happy just watching everyone messing around.

'Tired?' he asked her after they'd left Seisuke and Akito by the Space Jets to go and grab some coffee.

'Not really,' Kizuna replied, 'this place is amazing.'

'It is,' Kyosuke said, 'don't tell anyone but I'm actually having fun.'

'Your secret is safe with me,' Kizuna said winking an eye at him.

It wasn't until very late that day that they made it back to Shibukawa where they decided to stop by one of the fast food stores to grab something to eat before they would drive Akito back home. All three couples were sitting at one of the booths when Akito, picking distractedly at his chips, spoke up and said:

'Guys, I've made my mind up.'

'Regarding what?' Ryoko asked him.

'Racing,' Akito replied.

'What about it?' Kyosuke asked.

'The reason I needed this trip,' Akito replied, 'it's because I was feeling very confused but I'm not anymore.'

'Okay,' Seisuke said, 'I am now so, if you please…'

'You see,' Akito explained, 'when I found out about Guelfi-san's death, my grandfather and my father told me something but I didn't really understand what it meant until today. The thing is, they're right, motorsports are dangerous and one needs to accept that risk in order to keep on racing. I've been thinking that if Guelfi-san were in my shoes, he wouldn't have had any of the doubts I've been having. He would have carried on doing his job while forgetting about other stuff. That is exactly what I've decided I'll do.'

'What doubts did you have?' Kyosuke asked him.

'You weren't thinking of quitting, were you?' Seisuke added.

'I don't know,' Akito replied, 'like I said, my head was a mess and I didn't know what to do anymore.'

'But you do now, don't you?' Ryoko asked him.

'I do,' Akito confirmed, 'and it's all thanks to you guys. I'm very lucky I have such good friends.'

'Hey,' Seisuke said trying to hide his own embarrassment, 'what can we say? We're just super-cool!'

'Especially you,' Kaori said half teasing him, half sounding serious.

They all started laughing at that and by the time they all went back home, they knew that the crisis was over and that Akito would just do what he did best: driving insanely fast without worrying about the rest.

A week after their trip to Disneyland, Seisuke drove his RZ-1 to the base of Mt Akagi's pass where he found most of the Golden Arrows already there doing their best to keep Shinji distracted while he waited for Junya and Kyosuke to come back by throwing wild speculations regarding the young man's future new car.

'I say it's an S17,' Yuta voted feeling proud of his own car.

'Nah,' Eiji said, 'it's got to be a Honda, probably a Civic.'

'You're both wrong,' Shuji said, 'I'm sure it'll be a Subaru.'

'Yeah,' Tatsuya agreed, 'a GR more than likely.'

'Rubbish,' Masato said with a dismissive gesture, 'it'll be a Toyota, right Izawa?'

'Of course,' the man replied.

'I don't know,' Seisuke said, 'Aniki was the one who helped Junya choose, it could be a Mazda.'

'Or a Mitsubishi,' Kei added.

'Shinji-chan,' Shige said passing his arm around the kid's shoulders, 'which car would you prefer?'

'I don't know,' Shinji replied feeling a little overwhelmed, 'anything would…'

Just then they first heard then saw Kyosuke's famous RZ-1 and, behind it, they saw Junya driving a brand new, second generation Honda Beat painted in yellow. The first generation of this kei-car had been the B in the Japanese kei-car ABC together with the Mazda AZ-1 and the Suzuki Cappuccino. The new version looked a bit like a mini Civic cabriolet and the one Junya had just parked in front of them had a hard top covering it.

'Wow,' was all that Shinji was able to say.

'That's uber-cool!' Shige said forcing Shinji to walk with him towards the new car.

'See?' Eiji said with an air of superiority, 'I told you it was a Honda.'

Everyone quickly gathered around the new car and soon Junya climbed out of it looking for Shinji.

'Here,' he said giving him the key, 'what do you think?'

'Think?' Shinji asked as if he thought that it was impossible for him to think right now, 'I'm…'

'I think he likes it,' Yuta said.

'Of course he does,' Shige agreed.

'It's a really nice car,' Seisuke commented admiring the small but agile looking roadster.

'And I think it'll suit him well,' Kei observed talking to Shinji.

'That's right,' Masato agreed.

'It might not win in a drag race,' Izawa said, 'but I'm sure that for the mountains it'll be perfect.'

'It is perfect,' Shinji finally managed to say, 'I…I love it.'

'I knew you would,' Junya said.

'We've done some work to it,' Kyosuke explained, 'so it'll be a bit faster than the normal version. We've reinforced the suspensions as well as adding some stabilisers to improve its handling. The engine is a nought point seven but we've tuned it up to give up to ninety five horsepower. Its top speed right now is about one hundred and sixty five and like the Civic is an FF so it'll be fairly easy to take it around the corners.'

'Don't take our word for it,' Junya said to an astonished Shinji, 'get in and have a go.'

'What?' Shinji said, 'are you sure? I…'

'The car's yours,' Junya said, 'you do want to get used to it pretty quickly, don't you?'

'Of course,' Shinji said, 'it's just that…'

'Say Junya,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'do you mind if I ask Shinji to take me up Mt Akagi in his new car?'

'What?' Shinji asked, 'Kyosuke-san…'

'Sure,' Junya replied.

'I…'

'I'm sure you'll do great,' Kyosuke interrupted him again.

'Oh…alright,' Shinji said not sounding very sure of himself, 'please don't expect too much,' he asked him.

Kyosuke didn't say anything to that and, instead, he walked around the Beat and went to get onboard.

'Come on,' Junya said, 'show him what you've learned in these past three months.'

Slowly at first, Shinji made his way to the driver's side of the car and, climbing into it, he spent a few minutes looking at the dashboard where he could see the two digital dials, the speedometer and the rev-counter and three other gauges for water temperature, oil pressure and battery charge. There was also a very expensive looking hi-fi system complete with a mini LCD screen where he could see the sat-nav.

'What do you think?' Kyosuke asked him.

'I'm speechless,' Shinji said.

'Come on,' Junya said talking from outside the car, 'try and turn it on.'

Shinji inserted the key into the ignition and soon he heard the engine's explosive power coming alive.

'Wow!' he and a few of the Arrows gasped at the same time.

It sounded like music.

Eager to see what it felt to actually drive it, Shinji hurried to adjust the mirrors and the height of his seat, which wasn't of the bucket kind but extremely comfortable nevertheless. He then fastened his seat belt and waited for Kyosuke to fasten his too. Then, pressing the clutch with almost religious respect, he entered the first gear, released the handbrake and an instant later, they were off, leaving the car park and eleven of the Golden Arrows behind.

Mindful that Kyosuke would probably watch everything he did, Shinji drove the car with extreme care, trying to make his movements as fluid as possible while he took the car around the corners of the gentle slope which was the first part of the Mt Akagi Pass. He knew that he wasn't going very fast but it didn't matter.

'That's a good line,' Kyosuke commented gently.

'Thanks,' Shinji said.

'But you're going a little too wide at the exit,' Kyosuke said, 'you need to enter the corner a little slower and accelerate just as you're reaching the mid-point sticking to the apex as much as you can. This way you'll exit much faster without going too wide and you'll cut a few tenths of a second per corner.'

Shinji frowned a bit hearing this warning. Wasn't the same thing Akito had tried to tell him at the Centre?

'Kyosuke-san…' he started.

'Yes?'

'No, nothing,' Shinji said changing his mind while he carried on driving uphill.

'Is there anything that's worrying you?' Kyosuke asked him.

'No,' he lied, 'I'm just…this car is great,' he said.

'It is,' Kyosuke agreed, 'when we saw it, Junya and I thought that it would be perfect for you as a first car.'

'What was your first car?' Shinji asked him.

'The one I have now,' Kyosuke replied, 'but I learned the basics with one of the karts at the Centre.'

'How old were you?' Shinji asked him.

'Five-ish,' Kyosuke replied, 'Seisuke and Akito also started driving karts at that age.'

'Fujiwara-kun too?' Shinji asked sounding surprised.

'Oh yes,' Kyosuke said smiling at the memory, 'that punk overtook Seisuke in his second time onboard a kart when he was just five and a half. Seisuke had been driving karts for nearly two years when that happened.'

Shinji didn't say anything to that, instead, he asked:

'So you've been driving for a long time, haven't you?'

'Most of my life,' Kyosuke replied.

'That's why you're so good,' Shinji dared to say.

'Not really,' Kyosuke replied, 'sure, experience is an important factor but what really makes the difference is learning by seeing what other, more experienced drivers do. Try and figure out how they do what they do and then, once you're confident you can do it too, keep on practicing until you master that technique. Also, it's important that you don't focus on a single driver but to try and learn from different sources, everyone uses different techniques and you need to pick the ones which suit your own driving style.'

'How am I supposed to know which ones suit me best?' Shinji asked him.

'That's easy enough to understand,' Kyosuke replied, 'if you feel comfortable doing something, then it means that it suits your style. If you feel like you're forcing yourself too much, then it's better if you don't do it.'

'Ah, okay,' Shinji replied he looked like he wanted to add something else but he changed his mind again.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'now this is the fun part so, concentrate a bit and make this baby go a little faster.'

Complying with the order, Shinji applied more pressure to the accelerator making the Beat go faster as they reached the steeper part of Mt Akagi's Pass. He found that by increasing the speed he got a better response from the car itself making the ride a smoother one which, in turn, encouraged Shinji to drive even faster.

They soon made it to the summit with Shinji listening to the numerous pieces of advice Kyosuke was giving him as they went back downhill. Some of them were things that he'd already heard from Junya while the older man taught him how to drive, others were new things he'd never known they could be done and others still were in direct contradiction with Junya's teachings. Those made Shinji feel very confused.

As he made it back into the car park, he started thinking that maybe, just maybe, Junya was wrong about a number of things and it was with that unsettling notion that he stopped the car. Shinji didn't have the time to mull things over for he saw the members of the Golden Arrows quickly surrounding his new Honda Beat and seeing that Kyosuke was climbing out of it, Shinji followed suit and found himself right next to Junya.

'So,' the older man asked, 'how was it?'

'Perfect,' Shinji replied trying to sound normal, 'just perfect.'

'I'm happy to hear that,' Junya said with a smile.

'I'll never be able to thank you enough,' Shinji said.

'Don't worry about it,' Junya said.

While everyone was busy admiring the new car and talking about it with its proud owner, Kyosuke made his way to his RZ-1 and took a couple of the Golden Arrows stickers from the glove compartment then, he walked back to the group and asked everyone for their attention:

'After seeing Shinji's driving and considering what he and his machine can potentially achieve, I believe we should accept Sakura Shinji as the newest member of our team, 'Kyosuke said, 'so, what do you guys think?'

'Of course!' a few of them exclaimed while others just nodded.

'Any objections?' Kyosuke asked.

As predicted, no one spoke and handing the stickers to Shinji, Kyosuke smiled at him and said:

'Welcome to the team.'

With trembling hands, Shinji took the Golden Arrows decals looking at them as if he was about to burst into tears and, everyone was about to celebrate his addition to the team when Junya spoke up and said:

'Okay, now that this is settled, there's one thing I need to say.'

'What is it?' Kyosuke asked noticing the pleading look Shinji seemed to be giving him.

'Kyosuke,' Junya said, 'I want to challenge you to a race.'

This statement was followed by a sepulchral silence and while everyone sported expressions with different degrees of astonishment, Kei shook his head and Shinji looked a little upset, as if he felt somewhat disappointed in Junya for stealing his one and only moment of glory making such an unreasonable request.

'So,' Junya said, 'what do you say?'

'I say no,' was Kyosuke's surprising reply.

'No?' Junya asked looking shocked.

'No,' Kyosuke repeated calmly.

'Why not?' Junya asked him raising his voice a little.

'Because I don't accept challenges from any of you,' Kyosuke replied.

'Why not?' Junya repeated.

'Because I don't see any of you as a rival,' Kyosuke said without a trace of arrogance in his voice.

'Who do you see as your rival, then?' Junya demanded.

Kyosuke refused to answer to that question.

'Oh, come on!' Junya exclaimed now sounding definitely upset, 'don't tell me that it's that brat again!'

'Hey…' Seisuke started.

'You're exactly right,' Kyosuke said making a gesture to stop his brother, or any of the other guys, from intervening in the conversation, 'as a matter of fact, it is Akito the one I see as my biggest rival.'

'Why?' Junya nearly cried, 'I beat that brat myself, how can he be your biggest rival?'

Kyosuke glared at Seisuke who was very obviously about to reveal something that had to remain a secret.

'I have news for you,' Junya continued, 'that brat doesn't see you as a rival.'

'I know that,' Kyosuke said a soft smile appearing on his face.

'But then…'

'That's the reason why he'll have to beat me if he wants to become a member of our team,' Kyosuke said.

'So you'll race him!' Junya exclaimed.

'Of course I will,' Kyosuke said.

'But then why don't you race me again?' Junya said.

'Because you're already a member of my team, Junya,' Kyosuke said still trying to be patient.

'That's bullshit and you know it,' Junya shouted.

'You're free to see it that way,' Kyosuke offered.

'Alright,' Junya said, 'so if we aren't your rivals, what are we? And why did you ask me to be part of this team?'

'Above all,' Kyosuke said, 'we are a group of friends and the reason why I asked you to become a member of this team was because I genuinely think you are a great driver. I saw you had enormous potential and I wanted to see if, given the chance, you could get even better. I'm glad to say that my assessment was correct.'

'But…'

'Junya,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'I see you as a friend and I'd like to think you see me as your friend too. Now, as a friend, I want to ask you what is it that you want? Do you want to be in the Golden Arrows or not?'

Junya remained silent as if he were thinking about it when Shinji looked at him and said:

'Junya-san, if you aren't part of this team, then I don't want to be part of it either.'

A startled Junya stared at Shinji finally noticing the way the kid seemed to be silently begging him to be reasonable. He glanced back at Kyosuke who was still waiting for his answer but before he spoke, he looked at the other members of the Golden Arrows who were holding their breath to see what he said next then, returning his gaze to Kyosuke, he choose his next words very carefully and he said:

'Would you still want me in the team if I said I won't always agree with the things you do?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke said, 'I don't expect everyone to always agree with me, that's unrealistic.'

Junya looked at him for a while longer then, nodding once, he said:

'Alright, I'll stay in the team.'

For now, he mentally added.

While everyone let out a sigh of relief and they all got ready to start celebrating Shinji's addition to the team, in Junya's mind he started trying to come up with an alternative plan. So, Kyosuke saw that brat as his rival? Okay, if he had to properly beat the brat first in order to be acknowledged as a rival too, then he'd be more than happy to do it. Comforted by this thought, Junya finally smiled and decided to join in the celebration.

_To be continued…_


	50. Chapter Forty Nine

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Forty Nine_

Being the second Saturday of August and in the middle of the afternoon the weather should have been a lot warmer than it was on this grey and miserable looking day and, when Seisuke got out of his RZ-1 after parking it at his usual spot next to the Centre's entrance, he felt that the light blue short sleeved t-shirt he was wearing was nowhere near enough clothing to keep him warm. In fact, when he pressed the button on the key to lock his car, he saw that his arms were covered by goose bumps.

'Geez, it's cold,' he muttered.

Hurrying towards the steps, he nearly crashed onto Takumi who had just exited the main building with his daughter Haruko. Seisuke noticed that the girl was wearing one of the Centre's kid-sized racing suits and was holding her gloves and helmet with the air of someone who was used to carrying them around. She somehow reminded him of Akito.

'Hello there,' Takumi said looking a little amused, 'running late?'

'Just a bit,' Seisuke replied and looking at the girl, he asked, 'are you here for some training?'

'Yep,' Haruko replied smiling a little.

'She'll be entering her first Junior Cup next month,' explained Takumi.

'Oh,' Seisuke gasped looking suitably impressed, 'you'll do your best to win, won't you?'

'What else?' the girl said with such a Bunta-like expression that it made Seisuke laugh softly.

'That's the spirit!' he said, he then checked his wristwatch and said, 'I've got to go or Aniki will kill me.'

'See you later,' Takumi said while Haruko gave him a little wave.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied and then, two at a time, he finished climbing the steps, crossed the reception area and rushed towards their usual meeting room where, as he feared, he found the entire team already sitting there, 'I'm sorry I'm late, I...'

'It's okay,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'most of us just got here ourselves.'

'Good,' Seisuke said feeling a little relieved.

He then took the seat at Kyosuke's right and saw that, to his left, Eiji was busy sending an email with his phone while Yuta was playing with his console which was connected with Shige's via Bluetooth, Masato was reading some magazine while the rest were just sitting there waiting for Kyosuke to start the meeting.

'Okay,' he said, 'now we're all here, let's discuss the issue at hand.'

'Yeah,' Eiji replied putting down his phone, 'we're bored.'

'I wouldn't put it that way,' Izawa said trying to be reasonable.

'Eiji's right though,' Kei said startling everyone, 'it's been a pretty disappointing summer.'

'Summer's not over yet,' Seisuke pointed out.

'That's true,' Masato said, 'but I have to agree with Kei, either we're getting too good or the teams we've battled with weren't all that great. The one from two weeks ago was a complete waste of both time and fuel.'

'Guys…'

'Kyosuke-san,' Masato said, 'I know you don't want us to talk like that about any team but they were bad.'

'Very bad,' Kei added.

'Even Shinji managed to win his race,' Eiji said, 'no offence.'

'None taken,' Shinji replied looking pleased that they've reminded him of his maiden victory.

'Okay, okay,' Kyosuke stopped them, 'this is the reason why I've called this meeting. We're very obviously running out of teams that are at our level or higher so what we need to do is to try and keep our eyes open to see if we can find new teams or even single racers who can provide us with the challenge we need.'

'Er…' Tatsuya hesitated.

'What is it?' the leader asked.

'Well,' Tatsuya said, 'the thing is, Shige and I were servicing our cars the other day and we heard someone talking about this group of people who, every now and then, gather at the F-Line. The guy said that they aren't like an organised team or anything but it looks like they're just a bunch of guys who race for fun.'

'The F-Line…' Junya muttered.

'That's in Ibaraki, isn't it?' Izawa asked.

'Yes,' a pensive looking Kyosuke replied.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'I think we should go and check it out.'

'We definitely should,' Eiji agreed.

'Tatsuya,' Kyosuke said, 'did you happen to hear when they gather?'

'Unfortunately not,' Tatsuya replied, 'but if they're like us, they should be there during the weekends, right?'

'Probably,' Kyosuke agreed.

'We could try going there next weekend,' Masato suggested.

'Next weekend?' Yuta asked and both he and Shige looked a little worried.

'You can't make it?' Kyosuke asked them.

'Well,' Yuta explained, 'this week's the peak of the Perseids meteor shower and it's when the UFO activity is at its highest so we're having nightly meetings all week long and we'll both be camping the entire weekend.'

'Okay,' Kyosuke forced himself to say for lack of anything better, 'well, in that case…'

'You should just go without us,' Shige said, 'besides, it's not like you're sure you'll find them.'

Seisuke had to bite his tongue hard to stop himself from saying that it was more likely that they would find the F-Line racers than those two weirdoes would see any real UFOs. He then he remembered the incident in Fukuoka of last summer and somehow he felt the goose bumps returning to his arms.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'that's decided then, this coming Saturday, let's meet up at seven to travel there.'

'Usual place?' Kei asked.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'but let's not forget about what I asked: keep your eyes open, okay?'

'I wanted to ask something,' Shuji said all of a sudden.

'What is it?' Kyosuke asked.

'Are we looking for other members for our team?' Shuji asked.

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'I think we're enough people right now. Why? Did you have anyone in mind?'

'Not really,' Shuji replied, 'I was just wondering if we were, in case we see someone interesting.'

'Well,' Kyosuke said, 'if it's someone exceptionally interesting, then why not? But I think I'd prefer to keep the admissions closed for a while so that we can concentrate on improving our skills and finding better rivals.'

Shuji nodded his understanding to that.

'Any other questions?' Kyosuke said.

'I have one,' Junya replied.

'What is it?' Kyosuke asked almost fearing the answer.

'Are we going to organise another series of challenges like the ones we did last year?' Junya asked.

'I don't know,' Kyosuke replied, 'why?'

'I think we should organise another one sometime next week,' Junya replied then, with studied nonchalance, he added, 'we could even invite Fujiwara, isn't he supposed to be on holidays from his racing team?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke confirmed, 'he is on holidays but the whole point of that is for him to take a break from racing. Even if he were interested, he needs these days to catch up on his school work not to mention the fact that he'll be travelling to Shanghai next week. I don't think it's a good idea for him to waste his energy.'

'That's too bad,' Junya said.

'We could still organise something even if it is without him,' Masato suggested.

'We'll see,' Kyosuke said, 'for now, we should concentrate on those guys from the F-Line, okay?'

'Sure,' Masato said while a few others nodded.

'Alright then,' Kyosuke said, 'if there's nothing else, I've booked us the short circuit for the rest of the afternoon, feel free to join in if you want to get some extra practice.'

Twenty minutes later and having declined Kyosuke's offer, Junya and Shinji had just parked their cars outside the apartment the two shared when Shinji, gathering all the courage he had, voiced the question he'd been dying to ask ever since he'd witnessed the exchange between Junya and Kyosuke at the meeting.

'Junya-san,' he said, 'are you interested in racing Fujiwara-kun?'

'What makes you say that?' was Junya's all-too-fast response.

'Nothing,' Shinji hurried to ask, 'it's just that…I think that it would work better if you ask him directly.'

'Shinji,' Junya said, 'I think…that you should mind your own business.'

'Yes,' Shinji hurried to say, 'sorry, I just…'

'Let's just go home,' Junya said, 'I hope those F-Line guys will be good, I can't stand being this idle.'

'Yeah,' Shinji agreed happy for the change of topic, 'Junya-san?' he then asked.

'What is it?' Junya said while unlocking the door.

'I was just wondering if you're going to be busy on September 3rd.'

'I don't know,' Junya replied opening the door, 'why?'

'No reason,' Shinji muttered feeling very disappointed.

'Alright,' Junya said.

With that, they entered their apartment with Junya going straight into the living room while Shinji opted with going to his own bedroom while he pretended to be tidying it up so that he could look as miserable as he felt knowing that, once again, no one would remember his birthday.

Meanwhile at the Fujiwara residence in Shibukawa, Ryoko was having a lot of trouble making sure her boyfriend remained concentrated on his studies for longer than a few minutes. The two were currently up in his room sitting down on a couple of cushions by the low table Akito used to do his homework while Natsuki was downstairs taking care of the laundry.

'Alright,' Ryoko tried once again, 'tell me again, from which year to which year did the Sengoku Period last?'

'The what?' Akito asked.

'Sengoku Period,' Ryoko replied as patiently as she could.

'Er…' Akito hesitated, '1333 to 1336?

'Nope,' Ryoko said, 'that's the Kenmu Restoration, the Sengoku Period went from 1467 to 1573,'

'Hey, I was close,' Akito said.

'Akito,' Ryoko said sternly, 'you were over one hundred years too early.'

'Oh come on,' he complained, 'give me a break.'

'I can't,' Ryoko said, 'you've got to have these dates memorised by the end of today.'

'Why?' Akito asked, 'what's the point? I mean, who will ever use that sort of information in their lives?'

'Look,' Ryoko said trying hard to be patient, 'studying your own history is important. If you don't know where you came from, how are you supposed to know where you're going?'

'What are you on about?' Akito asked looking confused.

'I don't know,' she replied, 'that's something our history teacher always tells us but I think it makes sense.'

'If you say so,' Akito said not sounding entirely convinced.

'Please Akito,' Ryoko insisted passing him his Japanese History textbook, 'read them out loud again.'

Akito let out a sigh of resignation and, taking the book from his girlfriend, he started reading about all the different periods and restorations from the Palaeolithic all the way to their current era. While he did that, his hand somehow found its way to the one Ryoko had on top of the table and then he started caressing it.

'Stop that,' she said taking her hand off the table.

'Stop what?' Akito asked trying to sound innocent.

'Akito, please,' Ryoko begged him, 'be serious about this. Dad's been awfully good to let me come here to your house to study. He thinks we're just using the whole thing as an excuse to do goodness knows what.'

'Well…'

'Akito!' Ryoko exclaimed, 'we need to be serious about this or we won't be able to see each other at all, not even now that you're on holidays so, for the last time, please do try to get those dates in your head.'

'Alright,' Akito accepted, 'I'll be good.'

'Thank you,' Ryoko said looking relieved.

He started reading again and half way through the list, he saw that her hand was now back onto the table and, once again, he felt the instinct to place his hand on top of hers while he started caressing it slowly.

'Akito!' Ryoko exclaimed once again pulling her hand away.

'Sorry,' he muttered giving her a sheepish smile.

'Please,' she repeated, 'you need to concentrate.'

'Okay,' he said.

'Thanks,' she repeated.

'With one condition though,' Akito added pointing his index finger up and smiling a little more.

'What do you want?' Ryoko asked him.

'A kiss,' Akito said, 'if you give me a kiss, I'm sure I'll be able to concentrate much better.'

'Do you seriously expect me to believe that?' Ryoko asked looking incredulous.

'Of course not,' Akito replied, 'but I'm hoping you'll want to humour me regardless.'

Ryoko sighed once again and visibly giving in, she got up on her knees and, getting closer to him, she placed her lips on top of his. It was meant to be just a quick kiss but Akito put his hand behind her head and before she could protest, he started deepening the intensity and the length of the kiss.

This made her head spin dangerously fast and she only realised that he had lowered her to the floor when her head touched the cushion she had been sitting on and when Akito's mouth had moved from her lips to her neck. She then felt that one of his hands had somehow found its way under the t-shirt she was wearing and was now trying to get under her bra.

'Aki...' she started.

She never finished her protest because Akito covered her mouth with his and by the time he freed her to go back to her neck, things had definitely gone out of control. Too freaked out and scared to remember any of the self-defence techniques she'd learned from her father, it wasn't until Akito moved over her again that she somehow managed to scramble from under him to get back on her feet. She did it so quickly that Akito fell painfully onto his side.

'Ouch,' he complained rubbing his elbow.

Just then, Akito noticed the horrified expression on his girlfriend's face.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I…'

'I think I want to go home,' Ryoko said sounding very upset.

'Ryoko…' he tried.

'Where's my phone?' she asked while she grabbed her bag.

Akito sprang up to his feet and in a couple of strides, he went and placed his hand onto her shoulder.

'I'm really sorry,' he said, 'I…I don't know what happened to me.'

Ryoko remained both immobile and silent.

'Please, baby,' he repeated, 'I'm sorry, I really am.'

'Let's just study, okay?' Ryoko said with the smallest voice.

'Okay,' Akito said sounding very relieved, 'I am really sorry.'

'Please,' Ryoko insisted, 'I don't want to talk about it.'

Akito gave her a look full of worry but, very wisely, decided not to push the issue any further and, sitting back down, he proceeded to study the dates he was supposed to memorise while he felt like the biggest ass in the whole planet. He stole a quick glance at Ryoko and with a guilty pang, he noticed that she was sitting a lot further away than she'd been earlier and that she looked as tense as the cord of a violin.

'Ryoko,' he tried one last time, 'I said I was sorry.'

'I know,' she said.

'Please don't be mad at me,' he said, 'you know I can't stand it.'

'I know,' she repeated.

Akito huffed a bit and, putting his hand in front of her, he smiled at her playfully and said:

'Hit it, it's its fault if you're angry at me.'

Ryoko stared first at the hand then at her boyfriend and, seeing just how ridiculously funny he was being, she started smiling again. She then decided to humour him and rising her hand she slapped his trying not to hit him too hard.

'Bad hand,' Akito admonished, 'that'll teach you.'

Unable to help herself, she started laughing and thankfully, that cleared the atmosphere enough for them to resume their study session and, by the end of it, Akito even managed to correctly remember all the dates.

'Ryoko-chan,' they heard Natsuki's voice coming from downstairs, 'Kizuna-chan's here to pick you up.'

'Kizuna's here?' Akito asked looking a little confused, 'why?'

'No idea,' Ryoko replied.

The young couple went downstairs where they found that indeed Kizuna was there waiting for Ryoko.

'What happened to Kyosuke?' Ryoko asked her after exchanging a quick greeting.

'He had a last minute thing to take care of,' Kizuna explained, 'he asked me to pick you up instead.'

'What about Seisuke?' Akito asked.

'He's with Kaori,' Kizuna replied.

'So you're being my taxi for the day,' Ryoko said with a smile.

'Yep,' Kizuna said with a small Eiji-like reverence, 'at your service.'

'Can I ask you to take me anywhere I want?' Ryoko tried using her killer-smile.

'Absolutely…not,' Kizuna replied with an equally sweet smile, 'I have precise instructions from Kyosuke.'

'Bugger,' Ryoko said looking disappointed.

'And those instructions involve you getting home before dinnertime,' Kizuna added.

'Alright, alright,' Ryoko said then, she turned round towards Akito and, just then, what happened between them in his room returned to her mind. Feeling very awkward, she just waved at him and said, 'I'll see you.'

Akito looked surprised but to his credit, he recovered pretty fast and said:

'Of course.'

With that, Ryoko thanked Natsuki for the hospitality and soon she and Kizuna were onboard the 350Z on their way back to Maebashi. She must have been unusually quiet because, less ten minutes into the half an hour trip, Kizuna glanced at her and asked:

'Is everything okay?'

Ryoko considered lying to her for a moment then, she shook her head.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

This time Ryoko nodded.

'Alright,' Kizuna said, 'what's wrong?'

Taking a big gulp of air, Ryoko proceeded to explain to Kizuna what had happened in Akito's room.

'I overreacted, didn't I?' she asked sounding very worried.

'Not really,' Kizuna replied.

She paused for a bit in order to find the right words and then, she continued.

'Ryoko,' she said, 'with these things, you know, kissing, touching and the lot, you need to go at your own pace. If Akito does something you don't feel comfortable with, you need to tell him so that he doesn't do it.'

'But what if he gets mad?' Ryoko asked sounding a little anguished.

'He won't get mad if you explain things to him,' Kizuna said, 'Ryoko, most guys are naturally thick for certain things so the only way you'll get Akito to understand how you feel about certain situations is if you tell him.'

'I don't know…'

'It's your call,' Kizuna said, 'but just remember that it's important that you talk about this kind of stuff with him. Remember that you can't expect him to understand you if you don't explain to him what's making you upset.'

Ryoko remained silent for the rest of the trip while she pondered Kizuna's words.

Later on that evening and after she'd enjoyed a sit down meal with her family, Ryoko and her parents were sitting on the couch at the main living room while they watched a TV movie together. In all honesty, she was only pretending to watch it for her brain was preoccupied thinking about her conversation with Kizuna.

She knew that what the older girl said was probably right, after all, Kizuna did have a lot more experience than she did. However, she simply could not imagine having that kind of conversation with Akito, no matter how hard she tried. Just thinking about having to say certain things made her red with embarrassment.

'Sweetie,' she heard her mother's voice, 'are you okay?'

'What?' Ryoko asked looking startled.

'You are a little red,' Keisuke noticed.

'You aren't running a temperature, are you?' her mother asked placing her hand onto Ryoko's forehead.

'No,' the girl said shaking her head, 'I'm okay.'

'Thank God,' Kyoko said, 'it would be a disaster if you got sick just before you go to Shanghai.'

'That's right,' Keisuke agreed, 'you won't be allowed on the plane if you look ill.'

'I'm not sick,' Ryoko said a little too dryly, she corrected the tone and added, 'I'm fine, I swear.'

'Alright,' Keisuke said and he and his wife reassumed watching the movie.

Unfortunately, this conversation had just brought to Ryoko's attention something she had forgotten about: her imminent trip overseas with Akito. Granted, they were going to be chaperoned by Takumi and they had booked a twin room for father and son and a single for her so there would be no way for Akito to try anything or would it?

With this doubt suddenly assailing her, she opened her eyes wide and, jumping up from the sofa, she mumbled something incomprehensible to her parents before she bolted outside the room. She rushed to her bedroom and, once there, she grabbed her mobile phone and called the person she trusted the most in the world: her best friend Yayoi.

'Hey girl,' she replied.

'Yayoi,' Ryoko said, 'can you talk?'

'Of course,' her best friend replied, 'what's up?'

Ryoko quickly explained her dilemma and then waited for Yayoi to process the information.

'What should I do?'

'Well,' Yayoi said, 'I understand what Kizuna-san is saying but, to be honest…it's risky.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well,' Yayoi said, 'I know Akito-kun and he's not the sort that would do certain things if you don't want him to but, you know, you'd both be abroad, in a hotel, and maybe he'll do well in the race or something and you know, in the heat of the moment, you never know what can happen, do you?'

'I guess not,' Ryoko admitted.

'But the question here is, do you want it to happen?' Yayoi asked her.

'No,' Ryoko replied so quickly that she knew it was the truth, 'I'm not ready yet.'

'If that's how you feel,' Yayoi said, 'you should avoid situations where you might have to say no.'

'What should I do then?' Ryoko asked her again.

'If I were you,' Yayoi said, 'I would find a way to stay home.'

'How?' Ryoko asked, 'I think everything's booked by now.'

'Well,' Yayoi said, 'in that case you've got to go, maybe you should confirm that before you say anything.'

'I will,' Ryoko replied, 'thanks and sorry for calling you so late.'

'No worries,' Yayoi said, 'let me know how it goes, okay?'

'Sure,' Ryoko replied.

Closing the call, she pressed the fast dial button to call Akito and waited for him to pick up the phone.

'Hey baby,' he said, 'what's wrong?'

'Nothing,' she lied, 'listen, about the trip to Shanghai…'

'What about it?' he asked her.

'Has the team booked everything yet?' Ryoko asked.

'As far as I know,' he said and that made her heart sink, 'but I think the tickets are refundable.'

'Are they?' Ryoko asked.

'Yes,' Akito replied, 'I think it's a habit from Tanaka-san, he likes making sure he won't lose the money.'

'That's sensible,' Ryoko said not knowing what else to say.

'Ryoko,' Akito said, 'you haven't called me to discuss our travel arrangements, have you?'

'Er…'

'If it's about what happened today,' he said sounding a little irritated, 'I've already said I'm sorry.'

'It's not that,' Ryoko replied.

'Then what is it?' Akito asked.

'I…' she hesitated, 'I think I don't feel like going to Shanghai,' she finally spat it out.

'What?' Akito asked sounding dismayed, 'Ryoko, why are…'

'I just don't feel like going, okay?'

'But…'

'I'm sorry,' she interrupted him, 'can you please tell Tanaka-san?'

'Ryoko…'

'Please,' she insisted, 'I hate having to cause this much trouble but I really don't want to go, okay?'

Akito remained in silence for a few seconds then, speaking with a carefully controlled tone of voice, he said:

'Okay, you win. I'll talk to Tanaka-san.'

'Thanks,' Ryoko said.

Then and for the first time in like, forever, she hanged up on him and clutching her phone to her chest, she started crying for a number of reasons. Fear was on top of the list followed by some unidentified emotion which resembled guilt but wasn't quite that. At any rate, she was certain that Akito was now mad at her and that made her feel even worse.

_To be continued…_


	51. Chapter Fifty

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty_

Early on Tuesday evening, Ryoko was curled up on the tiny couch in her room, feeling too miserable to even pretend that she was actually reading the magazine she had in her hands. It had been four days since her quasi argument with Akito and, since then, her boyfriend had been kept busy preparing for his trip to Shanghai.

The result: she hadn't seen him at all.

She could have tried to meet him at either the Fujiwara residence or even at the Centre for she knew he had gone there on Sunday to watch his sister training for her Karting Junior Cup but, the truth was, she still hadn't come up with a way to deal with what had happened between them so she had decided to avoid him.

'Ryoko, sweetie,' she heard her mother's voice followed by a knock.

'Come in,' she said.

The door opened and she saw her mother Kyoko followed by the object of her thoughts.

'Akito…' she gasped while she bolted out of the couch, 'what are you doing here?'

'Hi,' he said with a sarcastic smirk, 'it's nice to see you too.'

'Sweetie,' Kyoko said with a slight frown on her face, 'Akito's leaving tomorrow morning, remember?'

'Ah,' Ryoko gasped nervously, 'yeah, of course, I remember that.'

'Alright,' Kyoko said, 'he's just here to see you before he's off, aren't you honey?'

'That's right, Kyoko-san,' Akito replied looking oddly serious.

'I'll leave you to it then,' Kyoko replied, 'would you like some tea?'

'No, thank you,' Akito replied politely.

'Okay,' Kyoko said then, she exchanged a quick glance with her daughter before leaving the room.

'So,' Akito spoke leaning against the doorframe clearly refusing to go any further, 'you're still mad at me.'

'I'm not mad at you,' Ryoko said feeling rather stupid.

'Then why haven't you called me?' Akito asked.

'You could have called me too,' Ryoko pointed out, 'besides, I've been busy.'

'Yeah, I can see that,' Akito said looking at the discarded magazine.

'Not now, obviously,' Ryoko replied now starting to get mad for real.

'Okay,' Akito said making an effort to be reasonable, 'I know it's too late for you to join us but, can you at least explain to me the reason why you don't want to go to Shanghai? Because I'm confused: last year you were so upset when you found out you couldn't come with us that your cousins had to take you to Fukuoka so that you would get distracted and now, when we had everything booked for you, you just cancel on us.'

'Akito..'

'Please tell me it's got nothing to do with what happened in my room,' Akito said lowering his tone of voice.

'I…' Ryoko started then, she bit her lower lip and then, she said, 'no, it's not that. It's just that…I just didn't want to distract you. You need to be focused on this race and…'

'Okay,' Akito stopped her looking, if possible, even more serious, 'I get it. I just came here to see you before I left, my father is downstairs waiting for me and I still have to finish packing so, I'll call you when I get back.'

Turning round, he was about to walk away when she panicked and said:

'Akito...wait…'

'What is it?' he asked her allowing himself to look a tad hopeful.

'Are you still going to call me before the race?' she asked instead.

His hope visibly turned into disappointment then he nodded once and said:

'Of course.'

'Okay,' she muttered.

Akito let out a long sigh and, as if he'd just decided to do that, he closed the distance between the two of them, gave her a quick peck on the cheek, whispered 'I love you' and then, he rushed out of the room. His sudden departure made Ryoko feel suddenly empty, she hugged herself, dropped onto the sofa and cried.

Four days later on Saturday at seven pm, the eleven members of the Golden Arrows who weren't camping waiting to see a UFO or, even better, an actual alien, met at their usual meeting place at Mt Akagi's base. From there they would drive to the city of Tsukuba in the Ibaraki prefecture hoping that they would find those mysterious racers and would not have to cover the one hundred and fifty eight kilometres for nothing.

About an hour and a half later, they reached their destination and less than ten minutes later, they were driving along the provincial road which would take them up to the area surrounding Mt Tsukuba, there, half hidden by a thick forest, they saw the start of the old and twisted road which was known as the F-Line.

'Cosy,' they heard Eiji commenting over the radio.

'I like it,' Izawa said.

'I hope we'll find them,' Masato added.

'Guys, cut the chatter,' Kyosuke admonished them, 'and keep your eyes open.'

The eleven car started the steep climb uphill and soon they were too busy trying to keep up with the rhythm imposed by their leader to even think of speaking. Even Seisuke found his older brother's behaviour a bit weird, as if the Golden Arrows leader couldn't wait to get to the top to confirm that there was no one there.

After travelling around three quarters of the way, they noticed a decrease in the road's inclination gradient and what it had previously been a fairly challenging uphill it had now become a gentle slope which took them all the way to the summit of Mt Tsukuba where, unsurprisingly, found a relatively big parking area.

It was empty.

Frowning a little, Kyosuke drove his RZ-1 all the way to the furthest corner of the car park and, stopping it there, he turned the engine off and unfastened his seatbelt. He then climbed out of the car finding that his other ten team mates had already done the same. The parking area had no artificial lights and the Golden Arrows found themselves standing in the dark, with only the moonlight providing some sort of illumination.

'They're not here,' Izawa pointed out unnecessarily.

'Oh really?' Seisuke asked, 'I thought they were playing hide-and-seek.'

'Maybe they are,' Kyosuke commented seriously.

'I was being sarcastic,' Seisuke explained.

'Kyosuke might be right,' Kizuna said, 'we don't know if there are any other roads they could be using.'

'You mean like a side road?' Masato asked.

'Precisely,' Kizuna replied, 'I did see a few smaller roads which crossed the F-Line, maybe they're…'

Shuji made a gesture which made her stop speaking.

'Guys, listen up,' he said with his calm voice.

They all strained their ears and, just as Shuji said, they heard the faint but definite sounds made by an engine. No, more than one, at least three or four of them, Kyosuke guessed, they were very powerful and they were also getting closer. In fact, within less than five minutes, they saw the first set of headlights coming into the parking area where they were and what the eleven drivers saw left them utterly stunned.

'Is that a…' Kei started, 'no, it can't be,' he added answering his own question.

'Kyosuke…' Junya started.

'Shush,' Kyosuke said, 'they're coming out.'

Out of the five black Mitsubishi which showed up at the top of Mt Tsukuba, they saw another five men all similar in build, all in their mid to late twenties and all looking like they'd known each other for a very long time. But that wasn't what caught Kyosuke's attention, his eyes were focused on their rides and even in such poor lighting conditions, he knew that what he was seeing was impossible for, as far as he knew, the newest version of the Lancer Evolution had not even been put into production, much less made available to the public.

'Hello,' one of the guys said with a friendly enough tone.

'Hello,' Kyosuke forced himself to reply.

'Nice evening, isn't it?' the man asked him conversationally, 'my name is Kanzaki Takeru, what's yours?'

'Takahashi Kyosuke,' he replied, 'these are my friends, we were just…'

'…passing by?' the man tried still sounding friendly.

'Kind of,' Kyosuke replied, 'we were looking for someone but I daresay you're the ones who have found us.'

'You might be correct,' Takeru said, 'who told you about us?'

'We just overheard,' Kyosuke replied not wanting to reveal too much.

'What were you expecting to do?' Takeru said now sounding all business-like, 'once you found us, that is.'

Kyosuke thought about it for a moment then he decided to be bold.

'I was hoping you'd want to race us.'

'Race them?' one of the men asked, 'Kanzaki…'

'I think you've made a mistake,' Takeru said interrupting his own friend, 'we don't usually battle outsiders.'

Kyosuke felt a frown appearing on his forehead and the prickling sensation he'd felt when seeing the cars became a pretty powerful hunch.

'I apologise,' he said, 'we'll just go then.'

'Oh,' Takeru exclaimed resuming his friendly tone, 'there's no need for that.'

'That's right,' the man who had spoken earlier said, 'you could just stay here and drive for a bit.'

'We'd like to watch that,' Takeru explained.

'No,' Kyosuke said firmly, 'I think it's better if we just go.'

Instinctively, he moved closer to Kizuna and with a hidden gesture of his hand, he silently asked her to get back into her Nissan. He also saw that several of his team mates had had the same idea and soon they were all climbing into their cars leaving only Kyosuke standing by his RZ-1 ready to get in it as soon as he said:

'We're sorry for the trouble and have a nice evening.'

'Wait,' Takeru said and Kyosuke had to make an effort not to jump into his Mazda.

'What is it?' he asked instead sounding as polite as possible.

'Here,' Takeru said handing him a business card, 'in case you ever change your mind, give me a call first.'

Kyosuke took the card and looked at the white rectangle where he saw the kanji for Kanzaki Takeru and a number. There wasn't anything else written on the card.

'Okay,' he said carefully putting it into his wallet, 'we'll just go now.'

Finally climbing into the RZ-1, he started its rotary engine and a few instant later, he led his team out of the car park feeling very grateful that to reach the provincial road all they'd have to go downhill. The faster the better, Kyosuke decided eager as he was to confirm his suspicions. This notion increased when Shuji, who was driving last, said with a slightly panicked voice:

'They're behind me.'

'Just keep on driving,' Kyosuke ordered.

The fifteen minutes which followed were the longest in all the eleven members' lives and they were all very happy when they saw the sign indicating that they had made it back into the city of Tsukuba and they noticed that, at some point during that time, they had also lost the five black Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. The group was even happier when they got back home after having dashed along the expressway making it back to their nice and safe base at Mt Akagi with a few minutes to spare before the clock marked eleven pm.

'Okay,' Seisuke said once they were all out of their cars, 'who were those freaks?'

'What I want to know is how did they get those cars?' Kei asked.

'I'm just sorry we went there for nothing,' Izawa complained thinking of the petrol he'd wasted.

'I'm happy we managed to come back,' Masato pointed out.

'That's true too,' Izawa agreed.

'Guys,' Tatsuya spoke, 'I'm really sorry, it's my fault we were…'

'Forget it,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'I was the one who decided to go there so the responsibility is mine.'

'You know,' Eiji commented, 'it's almost a pity Shige and Yuta missed this.'

'Why?' Seisuke asked him.

'Well,' Eiji said, 'if this wasn't a close encounter of the third kind, I don't know what it is.'

That managed to make everyone laugh and, feeling a lot better about it, they all decided to stick with having a few runs along their beloved, old and trusty Mt Akagi, deciding they'd had enough adventure for one day. A little later in Kizuna's apartment, while Kyosuke waited for her to finish taking a shower, he pulled his mobile phone out of the pocket of his jeans and started searching the internet to see if he could find the information he needed, focusing his search within the electronic edition of Who is Who in Motorsports.

'Hey baby,' he heard Kizuna's sleepy voice.

'Are you going to bed?' he asked her.

'Yes,' Kizuna said, 'I can't help but to think about those guys...and those cars.'

'Me either,' Kyosuke replied.

'Any idea of who they were?' Kizuna asked him.

'A vague one,' he replied, 'I'm going to need to speak to my father first.'

'Okay,' Kizuna said giving him her hand, 'come on, it's been a long evening.'

Taking her hand, Kyosuke left his phone on the first stable surface he found and followed his girlfriend to the bedroom.

The morning after, they drove back to the Takahashi residence where they found Kyosuke's parents in the kitchen eating their breakfast.

'Good morning,' the two doctors said to their son and his girlfriend.

'Good morning,' Kyosuke replied while Kizuna bowed politely.

'Have you had breakfast yet?' Akiko asked.

'Yes, we have,' Kizuna replied.

'Dad,' Kyosuke said, 'I wonder if I can ask you something?'

'Of course you can, son,' Ryosuke replied while he took a small bite from his toast.

'A couple of months ago,' Kyosuke said, 'you told me and Seisuke that you had met with an old acquaintance of yours who was working for Mitsubishi Motors.'

'That's right,' Ryosuke replied, 'Sudo Kyoichi, he's one of the senior advisors for the R&D Division. Why are you asking?'

'Do you have his number?' Kyosuke asked, 'I mean, his direct number?'

'I believe I do,' Ryosuke said, 'why?'

'I'd like you to ask him something, if that's okay with you,' Kyosuke said.

'Alright,' Ryosuke said putting his toast down, 'I don't exactly love the man but if it's just one question.'

'Thanks Dad,' Kyosuke replied.

'Let's go up to my studio,' the doctor said and, with that, he got up and left the kitchen obviously expecting his son to follow him. This left Kizuna alone with Akiko but unsure as to what to do but then Ryoko entered the kitchen. The girl looked very pale and that made her temporarily forget about her boyfriend's quest.

'Are you okay?' Kizuna asked her.

'Yeah,' Ryoko replied obviously lying.

Kizuna remained silent while she watched the younger girl pouring herself a large dose of coffee and, without even stopping to say anything else, she just left the kitchen carrying the cup. That made Kizuna's mind up and after excusing herself with Akiko, she followed Ryoko all the way to the house's living room.

'Hey,' she said, 'can I take a seat?'

'It's a free country,' Ryoko said.

'Okay,' Kizuna replied, she took a seat keeping a bit of a distance and said, 'you didn't talk to Akito, did you?'

'I did,' Ryoko replied, 'but it went really badly.'

Kizuna nodded once.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

'Not really,' Ryoko said, 'I just…I'm just an idiot, okay?'

With this, she got up again from her couch and for the second time in a few minutes, Kizuna watched the girl storming out of a room. She got up too and was about to follow her when he saw Kyosuke rushing down the stairs looking like a scientist after discovering the origin of the universe. He smiled at her and exclaimed:

'I knew it, I just knew it!'

'Care to share?' Kizuna ventured.

'Those guys,' Kyosuke said, 'they're all employed by Mitsubishi Motors R&D Division. Sudo-san told my father that he even knows that Kanzaki guy personally and guess what else I found out?'

'What?' Kizuna humoured him with a smile.

'Those cars, the ones we saw, they're prototypes!'

'Really?' she asked and this time she didn't have to fake an interest.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'Sudo-san said that Kanzaki's team are in charge of the first series of road tests.'

'Oh,' Kizuna gasped, 'that explains a lot of things.'

'It does,' Kyosuke said, 'and there's something else too.'

'What else?'

'Sudo-san,' Kyosuke replied, 'he told my father that he'd be grateful if we went back to the F-Line and organised a race or two with them. Sudo-san said that it would really help to test their performance.'

'Okay,' Kizuna said, 'are you saying that we'd be helping Mitsubishi's R&D Division?'

'In a way, yes,' Kyosuke replied.

'Now, that's a good cause, if I've ever heard one,' Kizuna commented with a little humour.

'I'm glad you think so,' Kyosuke said and, just then, he kissed her and said, 'I'm off to call Kanzaki.'

'Wait,' Kizuna said stopping him placing her hand onto his arm, 'I think we should make him wait a bit.'

'Oh?' Kyosuke gasped, 'you mean we should play hard to get?'

'That's exactly what I'm suggesting,' Kizuna said looking rather dignified, 'let him wait a few hours.'

'I love you,' Kyosuke said giving her a look full of admiration, 'you know that, right?'

'I do,' Kizuna replied then, getting a little serious, she pointed upstairs and said, 'I need to talk to Ryoko.'

'What about?' Kyosuke asked her looking confused.

'Girly stuff,' was Kizuna's mysterious reply.

Two hours later and after they had gone through a packet of tissues, a much calmer Ryoko came down to the living room followed by Kizuna who silently asked the two Takahashi brothers not to say anything about the fact that their little cousin had obviously been crying. There was no one else in the room since the brothers' parents had just left to go to the Arakawa Hospital and Ryoko's parents were at the Centre.

'Let's watch the race,' Kyosuke said.

Ryoko nodded and sat down at her usual spot of the couch then, taking the remote, she selected the sports channel where they would broadcast Sunday's F3 race from the Shanghai Circuit. While Kizuna took a seat next to Kyosuke, the four of them saw the highlights of Saturday's race. Akito had sailed through that one and in so doing, he'd practically booked the championship. Just two more wins and he'd be crowned champ.

'This race is important…' Seisuke had just started saying when they heard Ryoko swearing, 'baby cousin?'

'Who is that bitch?' Ryoko repeated pointing at the TV screen.

They all watched at what she was seeing and to their surprise, they saw Akito there. The commentator was talking about him and about how extraordinary it would be if he won the title in his first full season but that wasn't what had made Ryoko livid with fury and looking like she was ready to throw the remote at the TV.

No, what did it was the incredibly sexy Chinese model Akito had hanging from his arm.

'Ryoko,' Kyosuke said trying to get her to be reasonable, 'she's just having her picture taken with him.'

'Why?' Ryoko demanded.

'It's probably her job,' Seisuke explained trying not to laugh at her.

'What kind of a job is that?' Ryoko said once again close to tears, 'why does she have to be so close to him?'

'Ryoko,' Kizuna said, 'look, it's over, she's gone somewhere else now.'

They heard Ryoko puffing heavily while she fought to calm down a bit.

'Wow,' Seisuke muttered, 'I didn't know you were the jealous type…'

Ryoko glared at him viciously before she got up and announced that she was going to watch the race using the smaller TV set in her own room. She then left and Kizuna saw all her efforts to calm her down vanish in an instant. This time though, she decided to stay put and give Ryoko the space the girl probably needed.

Upstairs, Ryoko was so upset that she nearly failed to hear her own mobile phone ringing. It was Akito.

'Are you alone?' she demanded.

'Er…' he hesitated, 'yes, of course, why?'

'No reason,' she said.

'Whatever,' Akito said, 'look, the race is about to start and…'

'Yeah,' Ryoko interrupted him, 'be careful.'

'Okay,' Akito said sounding startled, 'you know,' he added, 'you usually sound…kinder, when you say that.'

'Well, I'm sorry,' she said, 'I'm just having a bad day.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' Akito replied, 'can we talk about it when I get back?'

Ryoko didn't answer to that.

'I guess not,' he said, 'I've got to go now.'

'Akito…'

'Yes?' he asked trying to sound patient.

'Be careful,' Ryoko said, this time sounding almost like her usual self.

'I will be,' he replied, 'and I do love you.'

'I know,' Ryoko said, 'I love you too.'

The girl hanged up the phone feeling mentally exhausted due to the extreme mood swings she had been putting herself through ever since the incident in Akito's room and she hoped that she would find a way to put into action what she had been discussing with Kizuna. Turning the mid-sized TV set in her room on she sat down on the small couch in her room, hugged the penguin shaped plushie Akito had given her for her sixth birthday and got ready to start watching her boyfriend's F3 race.

Unlike the previous year, it was a fair day with blue skies and nice weather and Ryoko watched with a pang of pride as Akito drove his black and white Dallara to the pole position. He got surrounded by his team's mechanics who were there to make sure everything was okay but were forced to leave ten minutes later. The overhead semaphore got lit and five red lights appeared and at the sign, all twenty eight cars started rolling forward to complete the recognition lap returning to their positions about a minute and a half later.

Once again, Ryoko felt the usual nerves whenever Akito was about to start a race.

Holding her breath, she watched the semaphore go from red to green and then the twenty eight cars took off in a mad scramble to try and get into a better position. Akito had to guard off a couple of other cars, the red Toda Racing and one of the NOW MOTORSPORTS who had somehow managed to get right behind Akito's PIAA-Tanaka Dallara. The three cars went around the first four turns keeping so incredibly close that it was a miracle they didn't crash. Ryoko allowed herself to breath when she saw that Akito had held into his first position and was now heading to the first of the two hairpin-like corners, clearing it without any trouble.

The following laps were almost event free and excepting one car retiring due to a hydraulic problem and a couple of others suffering a mild crash, the other twenty five racers went around the track fifteen times before the first major thing occurred. In fourth place, Minamoto Yukio's car spun out of control hitting Hideki Taguchi's Team TOM's making him lose the front wing of his car as well as other bits and pieces. That would have meant nothing to Akito if it wasn't because quite a few of the cars' parts were lying in the middle of the track and, because of that, the race director decided to deploy the safety car thus voiding the fifteen second advantage Akito had managed to build up.

Ryoko watched the silver Mercedes driving around the track until it found Akito. Then, overtaking him, placed itself in front of the PIAA-Tanaka single-seater where it stayed for the following four laps, allowing the circuit's marshals to get all the debris out of the path. The safety car only returned into the pitlane when there were just four more laps to go and, once again, Ryoko held her breath knowing that what Akito had to do was one of those kamikaze-like races she hated so much.

In fact, just as the Mercedes entered the pitlane and the race director allowed for the race to re-start, Akito found himself attacked in both sides by the cars in second and third place. They got into the first corner travelling awfully fast and just then the Toda Racing driven by Kawamura Naoki got ahead of Akito's Dallara. Ryoko felt a knot in her throat seeing that but started breathing again when she saw Akito using the short straight which followed the first set of corners to pass Naoki and, this time, it was his PIAA-Tanaka which got to the hairpin first. The two cars were engaged in a furious dogfight which lasted for the following three laps with Naoki pressing Akito while the sixteen year old did his best to defend himself.

The two cars crossed the finish line to start the last lap with Akito just a couple of seconds ahead of Naoki, he cleared the first, second, third and fourth turn in a quick succession, got into the fifth turn and then sped along the short straight leading to the hairpin. There probably deciding that he could start forgetting about the engine, Akito really pushed it to its limits when he cleared the S shaped sector which led to the final part of the course. That allowed him to get to the parabolic with over three seconds of lead on Naoki and by the time he cruised down the secondary straight and into the second of the hairpins, a smile started forming on Ryoko's face. The grin widened when a handful of seconds later, she watched Akito claiming the win.

'YES!' she shouted jumping up and down in her room.

In a different room of the house, Kyosuke decided that he'd made Kanzaki wait for long enough.

The truth was that, after seeing Akito's latest victory, he fancied a really good race more than ever and, for this reason he decided that, even if he had to pull rank on the guys, he would definitely be the one doing the uphill race. With that settled, Kyosuke pulled the phone out of his pocket and called the number which was printed on Kanzaki Takeru's business card.

'Hello?' his friendly voice answered.

'Hello,' Kyosuke said, 'I'm Takahashi Kyosuke, I…'

'I was waiting for your call,' Takeru interrupted, 'a couple of hours ago one of my big senpai from Mitsubishi called me telling me that you had managed to figure out who we are and what we do for the company. I must say that I'm impressed, usually our gangster-wannabe pantomime works wonders on other street racing teams.'

'Trust me,' Kyosuke said, 'it did work on us too.'

'Is that so?' Takeru laughed softly then, getting serious again, he added, 'I've got a proposal for you.'

'Let's hear it,' Kyosuke said trying not to sound too eager.

'No,' Takeru replied, 'I'll email you the details. I just need to know you'll be available next Saturday.'

'We should be,' Kyosuke replied.

'Great,' Takeru replied, 'then I'll see you then, providing you like my idea.'

'I'll let you know,' Kyosuke promised.

'That's a deal then,' Takeru said.

With that they hung up and Kyosuke felt that, for the first time in a while, he was excited about a race.

_To be continued…_


	52. Chapter Fifty One

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty One_

The Fujiwara residence was eerily quiet as Ryoko slowly made her way to Akito's bedroom. It was odd that she had found none of the members of his family and that, no matter how many times she called out his name, her boyfriend hadn't answered. Taking the final few steps towards the door with heavy feeling feet, she knocked on it and while she waited, Ryoko tried to get her heart to stop beating so furiously fast.

No answer.

Panicking, Ryoko opened the door thinking that something had to be wrong and to her utmost shock, she saw that while things were indeed very wrong, they weren't the sort of tragedy she had expected to find. No. It was worse, much worse. For there, lying on top of his bed, Ryoko found a half naked Akito with that Chinese model kissing him, touching him and doing to him all of those things Ryoko wasn't ready to do yet.

'Akito…' the girl whispered in despair.

Her boyfriend didn't reply, instead, he went to kiss the Chinese model and then, she heard him say:

'I love you so much, you do everything I want you to.'

'Akito…' Ryoko repeated.

'Let's take this off,' Akito said ignoring her.

With a horrified expression on her face, Ryoko watched while Akito peeled the panties off the model.

'NO!' Ryoko shouted, 'AKITO NO!'

Bathed in cold sweat, Ryoko woke up to find herself in the middle of her own bedroom. Her heart was racing and she felt her throat in flames making her realise that she had been shouting in her sleep. Soon, she also heard steps outside her room and an instant later, she saw her parents coming into the room in panic.

'Baby,' Keisuke said sitting by her side and hugging her, 'it was a nightmare, just a nightmare…'

Ryoko leant her head against her father's broad shoulder and sobbing a little, she muttered:

'It was horrible…'

'I know, baby, I know,' Keisuke said, 'but it's over, it's all over.'

'Here,' her mother said giving her a glass of water, 'drink a little.'

Ryoko took the glass and sipped a bit of the water.

'Darling,' Kyoko said, 'you kept shouting Akito's name, did you dream of him having an accident?'

The girl glanced at her mother for a moment then, she just nodded knowing that there was no way she could tell her parents of what she had really dreamt about. At any rate, while she was happy it had all been a nightmare, she realised that there was no way Kizuna's plan would work. She'd have to do something else.

A few hours later Kyoko drove her daughter to the Fujiwara residence. Akito had returned from Shanghai that same morning and the idea was for the young couple to spend some time together while having a light study session. Parking her car just outside the house, Kyoko looked at her daughter with a worried frown.

'Baby,' she said before Ryoko would climb out of the car.

'Yes?'

'Don't tell Akito about your nightmare,' Kyoko advised.

'Oh,' Ryoko gasped and shaking her head, she said, 'I wasn't going to. No way.'

'Alright,' Kyoko said, 'you know, he'd probably just worry about it and…'

'I know, Mum, I know,' Ryoko said, 'I won't tell him,' and mentally, she added, 'how could I?'

'Okay,' Kyoko smiled, 'your cousin Seisuke should come to pick you up at about five thirty, okay?'

'Alright,' Ryoko replied.

At long last, she got out of the car after promising her mother that she'd give Akito's family their love and that she'd remind Natsuki about the shopping spree the two women had agreed to meet for at some point. Ryoko was so nervous that she even failed to say that she definitely wanted to join in if they went out shopping.

Instead, she made her way to the house fearing that if she didn't sit down soon, her legs would just collapse under her. Ryoko was forever grateful when she heard Natsuki opening the front door telling her to come in.

'Akito's upstairs,' the woman explained.

'Okay,' Ryoko replied in autopilot while she donned her usual pair of slippers.

She then followed Natsuki into the house noticing that there was no one else home.

'Natsuki-san,' she managed to speak normally, 'where's everybody?'

'Training,' Natsuki said, 'Haruko is preparing for that Junior Cup.'

'Ah,' Ryoko gasped, they were in front of the dinning room's door and she felt suddenly too scared to move.

'Well,' an oblivious Natsuki said, 'I'm a little busy with school work so, feel free to get yourself a drink.'

Ryoko saw that on top of the dinning room's table, there were a pile of notebooks and that one of them was open showing some red marks. Natsuki was probably in the middle of correcting her students' homework.

'It's okay,' Ryoko replied, 'I'm not thirsty.'

'Okay,' Natsuki said, 'you know where his room is.'

Nodding once, she watched Akito's mother walking back to her seat at the table and then, knowing that she simply could not keep on standing there for much longer, she forced her legs to move her to the stairs and after a considerable effort, she found herself right where she'd been at the start of her nightmare.

'Oh gosh,' she whispered subconsciously.

Leaning against the wall for support, Ryoko took a few deep breaths fearing that she would end up having a heart attack and only when she'd managed to calm down enough, she started walking towards Akito's room.

Swallowing hard, she knocked onto the door and waited.

'Come in,' she heard her boyfriend's voice saying.

With trembling hands, Ryoko opened the door fighting the urge to close her eyes.

Thankfully, Akito was fully dressed and sitting by his low table doing his English homework.

The Chinese model was nowhere to be seen.

'Hey,' Akito said.

He was about to get up when Ryoko entered the room, closed the door and before he could even begin to move, she ran towards him, dropping onto her knees and, pushing him down onto the floor, she started kissing him so intensely that it made both of their heads spin. Akito felt like he'd been sent to heaven but he still felt the need to try and stop Ryoko by pushing her away as gently as possible and, with a smile, he said:

'Ryoko…'

'I've missed you so much,' she said and went back to kissing him.

Giving up, Akito decided to just go along with that and soon the two of them were lying onto the carpet which covered Akito's room and while at first Ryoko had been on top of Akito, they had somehow inverted positions and now it was Akito who covered Ryoko with his body. He kissed her on the mouth before moving somewhere else while one of his hands supported his weight so that he wouldn't crush her, the other one had found its way down to her hip and was now reaching for something else when he finally noticed.

Ryoko was shaking badly.

'Baby?' he whispered feeling slightly short of breath.

For all answer, Ryoko's hands clutched onto Akito's sweatshirt making him get back down towards her.

'Wait,' he said, 'what are you…'

'We need to do this,' Ryoko begged desperately.

'What?' Akito said, he wanted to get up but Ryoko wouldn't let him.

'No!' she exclaimed, 'we need to…if we don't…'

Akito finally pushed himself away from her and, getting up, he looked extremely confused and a little angry.

'Ryoko, what are you talking about?'

'Akito…'

'Look,' he said passing one of his hands over his face in frustration, 'I'd like to know what's wrong with you.'

'Akito…'

'The other day,' he interrupted her, 'I overdid things, I'll give you that but then you acted as if I had been about to rape you or something. Then you refuse to come to Shanghai with me and you even lied to me when I asked you to explain the reason why you didn't want to come and now, you come here and do this.'

'Akito…'

'What's wrong?' he asked now sounding desperate, 'please tell me.'

Still sitting down, Ryoko brought her knees towards her chest and started crying.

'Ryoko…' he then said dropping next to her onto his knees.

'It's all your fault,' she muttered.

'It obviously is,' Akito said sounding very depressed.

'It's just that…' she said, 'you want…and…I…'

Akito's brain finally clicked in place and bowing his head in defeat, he said:

'I get it, you don't want to do that yet, do you?'

Ryoko glanced at him with a panicked expression on her tear drenched face. She could only shake her head.

'I see,' Akito said then, his lips curved into a small, sad smile and said, 'why didn't you tell me?'

'I…' she tried speaking, 'I…just…'

'You thought that I would get mad at you or something, didn't you?' Akito asked and his smile widened a bit.

'Yeah,' Ryoko replied.

'You're a bit silly sometimes, you know that, right?'

'But…'

'Why would I get mad at you?' Akito asked.

'I…' Ryoko said then, it occurred to her, 'but if we don't do it, you'll want to do it with someone else!'

'What?' Akito gasped, his smile gone replaced with a shocked expression.

'You'll leave me and you'll do it with someone else,' Ryoko repeated.

'You're nuts if you think that I could do that,' Akito said sounding a little pissed.

'But…'

'I do want to do it,' he admitted, 'but I don't want to do it with just anyone, I want to do it with you.'

'Aki…'

'Honestly,' he said shaking his head in angry disappointment, 'how low do you think I am?'

'But…'

'Look,' he said forcing himself to calm down, 'I want to do it with you but if you are not ready to take that step, then I'll just have to wait. It's not like it's even a debatable issue, I mean, you're the only one who can make that decision, right?' he asked and before she could reply, he said, 'in that case, I'll just have to wait.'

'You will?' Ryoko asked sounding a little incredulous.

'Yes, I will wait,' Akito replied firmly.

'Really?' Ryoko asked again.

'How many times do I have to tell you?' he asked again sounding a little pissed.

'Once more,' Ryoko pressed.

'Alright,' Akito accepted, 'I will wait until you're ready, are you happy now?'

Ryoko smiled a bit and, passing her arms around his neck, she hugged him and muttered:

'Yes.'

'Hallelujah,' a relieved Akito said then, he pushed her away gently and narrowing his eyes a little, he said, 'just tell me one thing: when you say you want us to wait, are we talking in a scale of years or just months?'

'Months,' Ryoko replied, 'probably months.'

'Alright,' Akito said smiling once again, 'I think I can live with that.'

The two of them hugged again and Ryoko let out a long sigh of relief while she told herself that while she had been the biggest idiot ever, she was also the luckiest girl in the planet for having such a great boyfriend.

On the last Saturday of August the Golden Arrows had gathered at their usual meeting place at the base of Mt Akagi to, once again, travel together to Mt Tsukuba in the Ibaraki Prefecture. Kyosuke had asked them to be there by seven pm and while everyone had showed up on time, Izawa was now over fifteen minutes late.

'Where is he?' Junya asked impatiently.

'Oh!' Masato gasped all of a sudden, he slapped his own forehead and said, 'I can't believe I forgot!'

'What is it?' Kyosuke asked him.

'He told me he was asked to do some overtime today,' Masato said, 'he said he might be a bit late.'

'Well,' Kei said glancing at his watch, 'he is more than a bit late now.'

'Maybe he got stuck at work or something,' Seisuke suggested trying to be reasonable.

'Probably,' Kyosuke said.

'Should I try to call him?' Masato asked.

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'you'd only bother him if he's working. Just send him an email telling him we're on our way and that, whenever he's finished, he should just drive to the F-Line himself, can you do that for me?'

'Of course,' Masato replied.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said then, speaking to the team, he added, 'let's just go, we're already late.'

Soon enough the twelve cars got moving and a few minutes later, they were speeding along the Kan'Etsu Expressway to once again cover the one hundred and fifty eight kilometres which separated them from the area surrounding Mt Tsukuba. They only made it to the bottom of the F-Line about an hour and a half later.

'We're so late,' Kyosuke muttered to himself.

Hurrying up the twisted road, they got to the summit when the clock on the RZ-1's dashboard marked quarter past nine and even though the Golden Arrows had arrived fifteen minutes passed the agreed time, there was no one there waiting for them. The parking area was, once again, entirely devoid of other cars.

'Right,' Kei said climbing out of his car, 'where are they?'

'No idea,' Eiji replied doing the same.

'Kyosuke,' Junya said locking the door of his S18, 'they're not going to stand us up, are they?'

'I don't think so,' Kyosuke replied.

'So,' Yuta intervened, 'those drivers, they're pretty awesome, aren't they?'

'They are,' Masato told him.

'You two missed quite the experience,' Eiji said to Yuta and Shige, 'I hope your UFO watching was worth it.'

'Not really,' Shige admitted.

'What?' Kei teased him, 'no aliens?'

'Not one,' a baffled Yuta replied, 'to think we were in the right place and at the right time…'

'Hey,' Seisuke clearly joked, 'maybe this UFO watching business is a bit like fishing, it takes a lot of patience.'

'Yes,' Shige replied looking relieved, 'that's exactly what it's like.'

'I knew you'd understand,' Yuta added smiling gratefully.

'S-sure,' Seisuke said trying hard not to burst out laughing.

He was saved by the sounds of engines coming up the road and in a repeat of what had happened the previous week, they all saw the five black Mitsubishi coming into the parking area and once again, they all felt like they were in some international car show watching a bunch of beautifully crafted concept cars.

'Hello,' Takeru said climbing out of his car, 'sorry we're a little late.'

'It's fine,' Kyosuke replied, 'we just got here ourselves.'

'Ah, good,' Takeru said then, he waited for his colleagues to join him and added, 'well, I think that introducing everyone to everyone else would just be confusing so I think we could just get on with things.'

'I agree,' Kyosuke replied.

'Great,' Takeru said, 'now, I take you've picked the four guys you want to represent your team.'

'I have,' Kyosuke replied.

'Did you guys get enough training?' one of Takeru's men asked.

'We did our best,' Junya replied using a slightly challenging tone.

'Good,' the man said, 'in that case there will be no need for us to use some handicap.'

'Be quiet,' Takeru told him then, he looked at Kyosuke and said, 'what do you want to do first?'

'I think we should do the time attacks,' Kyosuke replied, 'we can have our race after that.'

'That's a good idea,' Takeru said smiling his approval, 'in that case,' he added, 'your guys can go ahead.'

'We're doing it first?' Kyosuke asked.

'Is there a problem with that?' Takeru said.

'Well,' Kyosuke replied, 'I think I'd like to do this alternatively. First one of my guys, then one of yours.'

Takeru considered this for a bit and after silently consulting with his men, he nodded and said:

'Okay, let's do it your way.'

The older man walked back to his car and opened the passenger's side to get something out of the glove compartment. Then, he returned to where Kyosuke waited holding a Casio stopwatch in his hand and said:

'Let's start.'

Kyosuke nodded and turning round, he went to get his own stopwatch out of his car while he saw the four people he had handpicked for the task starting to get ready. The rest of the team just sat in pairs and a trio on top of three of their cars while Takeru also gathered with his colleagues so that they could discuss their starting order.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said looking at his younger brother, 'do you feel like being the top batter for us?'

'Absolutely,' Seisuke replied with a confident smile.

'Perfect,' Kyosuke said briefly returning the smile, 'then go and make me proud.'

Seisuke nodded once before he made his way to the white RZ-1 and while he got ready to start, Junya, Eiji and Kei followed Kyosuke to the starting point where they saw Takeru and three of his men, the fourth one was already sitting in his car, waiting for Seisuke to finish his run. Kyosuke glanced at Takeru and said:

'I take you'll be timing every run.'

'That's right,' Takeru replied, 'you should do the same, then we'll compare the times to make sure they all match. Then, as I explained in the email, we'll do the averages. Naturally, the fastest will be the winner.'

'Of course,' Kyosuke said.

Just then Seisuke rolled his car in position and, at Kyosuke's and Takeru's sign, he took off driving downhill.

'Good start,' Kyosuke heard Eiji whisper and he found himself agreeing.

The white RZ-1 had indeed started really well, Seisuke knew that it was important that he got the speed going while the gentler sector of the road gave him the chance for he knew that once he reached the steeper part, there would be no room for errors. For this reason, he knew it was crucial he went flat out from the start, trying to watch out for the small disconnections in the tarmac which were due to the two or three side-roads they had discovered ran across the F-Line in a few points along the length of the course.

The other thing he had to look our for, were the uncovered gutter runs he's noticed during the practices he'd done there the past week. He knew that they didn't run all the way down the road but they were deep enough for him to be in serious trouble if he had the misfortune of accidentally driving over one of them so, keeping that in mind, Seisuke stayed as far away from them as possible.

A few minutes later, he reached the bottom of the pass and without wasting time, he turned round with a perfectly executed drift and then he launched his RZ-1 back uphill. Now, that was the style which he preferred, the one which he felt his car performed at its best using all its rotary power to defy gravity itself.

Corner after corner, he climbed the road and within just a few more minutes, he saw the top once again.

'Yes!' he exclaimed when he crossed the finish line.

He knew that he'd done a good time but he was very surprised when, getting out of the car, he found a stunned Takeru shaking his stopwatch as if he thought the thing wasn't working properly. The guy then laughed and said:

'Wow, that was superb.'

'What happened?' Seisuke asked his brother.

'I'm not sure,' Kysouke replied.

'He's just beaten our record,' Takeru explained, 'now we'll just have to do it a bit better than usual.'

Seisuke didn't know whether to be pleased at what he'd achieved or be afraid of the consequences.

'That's just what I wanted to hear,' Junya said, clearly not sharing any of Seisuke's concerns.

Without making them wait, the man who was already sitting in his black Mitsubishi drove down to the starting point and, soon enough, he too was off, coming back a while later, a very, very short while later.

'Oh no,' Seisuke heard his older brother mutter.

'What?' he asked him.

'Look,' Kyosuke said showing him the stopwatch, 'he was two seconds faster than you.'

'How's that possible?' Junya hissed.

'They said he just broke their record,' Kei added using an equally low tone of voice.

'Records are to be broken,' they heard Takeru say, the guy sounded very pleased, 'everyone knows that.'

'Alright,' Junya said, 'I'm next.'

Kyosuke nodded and soon, they saw him placing his S18 in position. He was then off and Kyosuke found himself praying that Junya would not overdo things and would not end up crashing someplace down there.

Thankfully, the guy made it back in one piece and with his time being just a tenth of a second faster. Takeru looked even happier and it started looking like his men were having a lot of fun too. This made Kyosuke feel rather worried and as Eiji rolled his revamped NSX RR towards the starting line, he knew that the night was slowly becoming a record-breaking crescendo. In fact, when Eiji returned, his time was just a tiny bit faster than the second of Takeru's guys but it was immediately beaten by the time set by the third Mitsubishi man.

The Golden Arrows' hopes were all on Kei and his twelve year old EVO X.

'I haven't seen one of those in years,' Takeru commented when he saw Kei's ride.

'It's gorgeous,' another of his men countered, 'that's what we should be aiming for.'

'What?' one of his colleagues asked in disbelief.

'Taking a step backwards sometimes is a good thing,' Takeru commented.

'And the X was a really good car,' the first man who spoke said.

'It still is,' Kei intervened speaking from inside of his beloved car.

'Of course,' Takeru hurried to say, 'we didn't mean any offence.'

Kei didn't answer, instead, he nodded before he made the window go up again.

By this point, all members of the Golden Arrows had gathered at the staring point, ready to see if Kei would be able to withstand the pressure he had on him. His was the second oldest car of their lot and easily the one in relatively worst condition, in spite of the money Kei was now able to invest on his machine.

'He'll be fine,' Eiji said seeing the worried expressions sported by a few of his team mates.

'He will be,' Masato agreed.

Just then, Kei took off driving a little slower than his other three team mates.

'What is…'

'That's a smart move,' Kyosuke said interrupting Junya.

'Why?' Seisuke asked.

'You'll see,' was all Kyosuke replied.

Seeing how his three team mates had scored increasingly higher times, Kei decided that if he wanted to keep that up, he had to play it safe at the start. He would then use the fact that his car was the heaviest of the four to make sure gravity took him downhill as fast as possible. His strategy included that the four wheel drive would help him keep control during the descent, as well as have a better grip once he started climbing.

The result of this strategy was that Kei crossed the finish line a full three seconds faster than current record.

'How did he…'

'I told you,' Kyosuke said to his brother, 'it was a smart move.'

'That Kei,' Junya laughed glancing at the guy with something close to admiration.

At this point, all they could do was to wait for the fourth and final run by the Mitsubishi men but by then, Takeru looked like he had already decided to wait until his race with Kyosuke to properly settle everything.

'We're giving up,' the guy announced.

'What?' Kyosuke asked mirroring the question everyone of his team mates wanted to ask.

'We're not going to beat that time,' Takeru explained.

'Why not?' Kei asked him.

'Because of my car,' the fourth driver replied, 'it has ballast weights welded onto its base for testing purposes.'

'It's two hundred kilos heavier than ours,' Takeru added, 'there's no way it can beat a race-spec EVO X.'

'Then…'

'You've won the time attack,' Takeru said, 'just like we thought you would.'

'Then why did you want to do it?' Kyosuke managed to ask.

'Oh,' Takeru gasped, 'it just seemed like a fun thing to do, besides, it's good training for you lot.'

Kyosuke didn't know what to say to that but felt happy to see that his team mates were equally speechless.

'Alright then,' Takeru continued, 'I think it's finally our turn now.'

Immediately, the atmosphere became a notch tenser, as if everyone had been eagerly waiting for that moment. Takeru got onboard his car and turning it on, in the quiet of the night, Kyosuke heard that there was something in that particular engine which had clearly been missing in the other four cars. Knowing that all five cars had been set up differently, he started wondering just what kind of specs Takeru's car had.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said taking him out of his reverie, 'you should get in your car too.'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied.

'Are you okay?' a concerned Kizuna asked him.

'Yeah,' he replied.

He then rushed to his RZ-1 ignoring the worried frown which appeared on their faces and soon, he had his car lined up with that of Takeru. He then saw Seisuke walking in front of the two cars ready to start the countdown and as soon as he heard the GO!, Kyosuke floored the accelerator trying to get ahead.

'Wow,' Junya gasped.

'That's not something you see every day,' Eiji commented.

'What's wrong with your brother?' Kei asked Seisuke.

'No idea,' the future doctor replied.

Masato was about to say something when he heard his phone ringing. Pulling it out of the back pocket of his jeans, he glanced at the tiny screen and saw Izawa's name announced as the caller ID. Laughing, he said:

'It's Izawa, I bet you he's lost somewhere.'

Seisuke and Eiji let out a soft chuckle while Masato answered the call.

'Where are you?' he asked with a wide grin appearing on his face.

What he heard next wiped the smile off his face and it was with a very serious tone that he said:

'Of course, I understand, I'll be there as soon as I can.'

He closed the call and slowly lowered his arm letting it hang lifelessly along his body.

'What's up?' Eiji asked him.

'It wasn't Izawa,' Masato managed to say with a very odd voice.

'Who was it?' Seisuke asked frowning a little.

'The police,' Masato replied, 'Izawa's crashed his car against a truck and he's been taken to the hospital.'

_To be continued…_


	53. Chapter Fifty Two

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty Two_

Ten full seconds passed between Masato's announcement and Seisuke's reaction to the news.

'Where have they taken him?'

'What?' a very distracted Masato asked.

'Izawa,' Seisuke said taking Masato by his arm to get him to focus, 'to which hospital was he taken?'

'Er…' Masato hesitated then, he pulled himself together and said, 'the Hidaka, they've taken him there.'

'Alright,' Seisuke said frowning only a little at the mention of one of the Takahashi Arakawa Medical Group's main competitors, 'right, this is what we'll do,' he said looking at Kizuna who seemed to be in trance, 'Kizuna?'

The girl didn't answer.

'Kizuna,' he repeated walking closer to her, 'hey…'

'Izawa…'

'Kizuna, I need you to listen to me,' Seisuke said, 'you and the rest of the guys will stay here until Aniki finishes his race and decides what to do, Masato and I will now go to Takasaki to the Hidaka to see Izawa.'

'But…' she tried.

'There's no time for "but" now,' Seisuke interrupted her, 'please tell me you understand that.'

'Yes,' she finally said.

'Okay,' he replied and looking at everyone, he said, 'I trust no one has any objections.'

'No,' Junya spoke on behalf of everyone else.

'Alright,' Seisuke said, 'Masato go and get in your car.'

'What about Kyosuke-san's race?' Masato asked him.

'Masato,' Seisuke smirked, 'do you really think we'll catch them?'

Without waiting for an answer to that question, he started making his way to his own car trying to ignore the curious looks he got from the four Mitsubishi test drivers. Getting in his RZ-1, he saw that Masato was already in his Vera TRD and very soon, both cars drove out of the parking area descending along the F-Line as fast as their cars would take them. Needless to say, they found no signs of the two competing cars.

The reason was simple enough:

Within two corners, Kyosuke realised that getting ahead of Takeru had been a mistake and now he found himself under a terrifying amount of pressure which forced him to keep increasing the speed in order to keep the Mitsubishi behind him. Alas, that didn't seem to be enough and at only the fourth corner, a fast left-hander, Kyosuke saw Takeru veering outwards and in a stupidly easy-looking manoeuvre, the guy simply passed him making Kyosuke feel like such a newbie he wanted to cry in frustration.

He didn't have the time for that though and persuading himself that they still had a lot of race to cover, Kyosuke decided to do his best to stick to the Mitsubishi while he tried to remember the points in which he could try to overtake his opponent. Also, while he was behind, he could even try to identify a weakness in either the car or its driver and hopefully he would find something he could use in order to win the race.

For the following few corners Kyosuke saw the gap which separated him from Takeru increasing to the point that, by the time they made it to the start of the steeper part of the course, there was a distance of about a car and a half between both Mazda and the Mitsubishi. Kyosuke knew that if the gap widened any further he would not have the time to recover, much less overtake. But then he noticed something odd in the Mitsubishi.

At first he thought it was his imagination but, as they approached the next right-hander, he saw that while Takeru entered the corner normally, he did a very small correction half way through it just before the exit.

Kyosuke increased the pressure on the accelerator to try and get closer to the Mitsubishi and when they got to the following corner, this time it was a left-hander, he saw that Takeru still did that tiny adjustment to the trajectory of the car. Somehow, Kyosuke believed he had found something he could use to his advantage.

The two cars got to the mid-point of the race and Kyosuke spotted the sector he'd been waiting for. There was a tree leaning dangerously towards the road and the vegetation there was significantly thicker than at the rest of the road but what was really important was that there was a bit of a hard shoulder he could use.

Veering towards the guardrail, driving as close to it as possible, Kyosuke got over half a car outside of the road and, pushing it to its limits, he first levelled with the Mitsubishi then, as they approached a right hand fast corner, Kyosuke squeezed his car in between the guardrail and the EVO prototype hoping that his idea would pay off.

Takeru at first tried retaliating by closing the gap forcing Kyosuke to slow down a bit but then, when he did that small correction he had to do at every corner, gave Kyosuke the extra space he needed. Sticking to the guardrail as close as he could, Kyosuke ended up exiting the corner in perfect parallel with the Mitsubishi.

Fortune smiled at Kyosuke because the road twisted immediately to the left leaving Takeru the furthest from the corner's apex and with this, Kyosuke managed to get out of that left-hander just ahead of his opponent.

He hadn't had the time to feel relieved when, at the following right-hander, Takeru went to pass him again.

'Not again,' Kyosuke said to himself.

Using his own car as a shield, he crossed it along the length of the road and, executing a drift, Kyosuke forced Takeru to remain behind him. Kyosuke of course knew that this strategy would not save him at the straight which was right ahead of him so, straightening the car he just floored it making the rotary give him all it got. That only helped him enter the following corner slightly ahead of Takeru but as they exited it, he saw the Mitsubishi attacking again with the same seemingly easy but highly effective manoeuvre.

Knowing he could do absolutely nothing against whatever it was that Takeru did, Kyosuke just kept blocking him with the half drift, using the extra power of his car to stay ahead. That made him feel very frustrated and as he darted downhill, the small part of Kyosuke's brain which wasn't focused on the race started thinking that a driver as smart as Kanzaki Takeru had to have an ace up his sleeve somewhere.

Feeling just a bit unnerved by the thought, Kyosuke increased yet again the speed running at ninety percent of his own capabilities. He had only driven so close to his own limits once and that was during the race against Akito at the Centre over a year ago. Kyosuke had been right to be excited about this race.

With just a quarter of the distance to go, the RZ-1's headlights shone on one of the intersections which crossed the F-Line. Kyosuke knew that he had to be careful with that one because the tarmac there was a little lower and was a lot bumpier than at the rest of the road. He also knew that it was imperative Takeru didn't overtake Kyosuke again for, this time, he would not have the time nor space to pass him again.

Knowing those two facts, Kyosuke decided to ignore his common sense and, keeping his foot down onto the accelerator, he sped through the intersection, hoping that he wouldn't catch any of the larger bumps with the RZ-1's tyres. He made it back to safety but then, just as he was about to enter the corner, he saw that the Mitsubishi's headlights had disappeared from the RZ-1's rear view mirror.

'What the…'

Even years later, Kyosuke would not be able to tell what really happened next. The only thing he knew was that following some instinct he somehow managed to defend himself from what would be Takeru's last attack and, a few corners later, when he finally saw the finish line, he felt himself shaking due to the adrenaline rush he'd just got. It was that which made it possible for him to keep on driving to the goal.

Kyosuke let his car roll for a few more metres before he finally made it come to a full stop. At the same time, Takeru had already stopped the Mitsubishi, pulling towards the side of the road and parking it there.

Before he climbed out of the car, Kyosuke leant his head against the bucket seat and, very slowly, he let go of the steering wheel noticing that his hands were still trembling a bit. Taking a few deep breaths, he calmed down enough to realise what he'd just done. He'd won one of his most exciting races yet.

Getting out of the car, he found Takeru walking towards him with a friendly smile on his face.

'You're an amazing driver,' Kyosuke told him before the older man could speak.

'What?' Takeru asked sounding surprised, he then added, 'winners should not compliment the losers.'

'They should when the losers deserve it,' Kyosuke countered.

'Fair enough,' Takeru said.

'There's one thing I'd like to ask,' Kyosuke said.

'Go ahead,' Takeru invited.

'Why did you do that small correction at the corners?' Kyosuke asked, 'is there a problem with the weight distribution of the car? I mean…I…'

'You're just as scary as Sudo-san said you'd be,' Takeru interrupted him with a soft chuckle.

'What do you mean?'

'Sudo-san warned me,' Takeru explained, 'that underestimating the son of Takahashi Ryosuke would be a very bad idea. He was right, you've noticed the only thing we still haven't managed to get right in that car.'

Kyosuke didn't know what to say to that.

'But you know,' Takeru continued, 'I'm a bit miffed.'

'You are?'

'Yes,' Takeru replied pouting a little, 'this is my home course, you know? I was born here in Shimotsuma and I've been driving on the F-Line since…well…for a really long time. To be beaten here it's a bit embarrassing.'

'Sorry,' Kyosuke felt compelled to say.

'No worries,' Takeru said with a smile, 'it's worth it. Winning all the time can get samey so, a defeat every now and then can be a positive thing. Now I know that I need to keep on working hard to get even better.'

'That's exactly the way I see things too,' Kyosuke said.

Takeru was going to reply when, just then, they saw two cars darting past. One was Masato's red Vera TRD, the other was Seisuke's white RZ-1. Frowning a little, Kyosuke started wondering what had just happened.

'I better go…' he muttered.

'Sure,' Takeru said immediately grasping the situation, 'it's been a pleasure racing with you.'

'Same here,' Kyosuke replied.

He then rushed back towards his RZ-1 and, sitting inside, he tuned the radio to the private frequency.

'Seisuke, it's me, do you copy?'

'I copy you,' Seisuke replied, 'Izawa's had an accident and has been taken to the Hidaka, Masato and I are going there now. The rest of the Arrows are still up at the summit waiting until you decide what to do.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said.

'By the way,' Seisuke added, 'you won, right?'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied and had to smile hearing his younger brother's happy cheer.

'Gotta go now,' the future doctor said, 'I'll call you as soon as I find out about Izawa's conditions.'

'Sure,' Kyosuke replied, 'I hope he's alright.'

'Me too, Aniki, me too,' Seisuke said.

Less than two hours later, Seisuke and Masato left their cars at the hospital's small car park and rushed towards the entrance, hoping that they would be allowed to see Izawa in spite of the late hour. In fact, it was nearly midnight when they approached the Hidaka Hospital's admissions desk behind which a male nurse was sitting doing some work.

'Good evening,' Seisuke greeted him, 'my name is Takahashi Seisuke and he is Ikeda Masato, we understand a friend of ours called Izawa Daichi was involved in a car crash and was brought here about three hours ago.'

'Let me check that for you,' the nurse said typing something onto a keyboard.

Seisuke and Masato waited for a few seconds while they saw a pregnant lady being carried in. Seisuke knew that the Hidaka had the best maternity department in Takasaki and that in the Gunma Prefecture it was only second best to the one in the Arakawa Hospital. For this reason, many women came here to give birth.

'Okay,' the man said and Seisuke focused his attention back on him, 'your friend is in room 707.'

'Is it possible to know how he is?' Masato asked.

'I'm going to call a doctor now,' the nurse replied, 'he'll explain everything to you.'

Seisuke frowned a bit but said nothing. Instead, he waited with Masato until a good fifteen minutes later, he saw a doctor, a short and balding man in his late sixties, walking towards them with a tired expression.

'Where are they?' the doctor asked to the male nurse who just pointed towards Seisuke and Masato. The doctor then looked at them and tried to smile a little, 'I'm Sawahari, who of you two is Ikeda Masato?'

'That'd be me,' Masato replied.

'Okay,' the doctor said, 'Izawa-kun insisted that we'd let you know regarding his conditions.'

'He's conscious then,' Seisuke couldn't help but to ask feeling washed with relief.

'Yes, he is,' Doctor Sawahari said, 'let me tell you,' he added, 'it was nothing short of a miracle he survived.'

'What do you mean?' Masato asked, his eyes widening with shock.

'The paramedics who went to the site told me that the car was trashed,' the doctor explained.

'Trashed?' Masato half whispered in horror.

'Yes,' Doctor Sawahari replied, 'the rescue team had to practically saw the car in half to get your friend out.'

'Oh shit…' Seisuke muttered before he could help himself.

'Yes,' the doctor seemed to agree, 'at any rate, he was exceptionally lucky, it seems like the poor car did a terrific job protecting him and he got out of it with only a fractured left tibia as well as some other minor injuries including a concussion. We're going to keep him in observation for the next twenty four hours and after that, we'll probably move him out of the emergency ward.'

'Can we see him?' Masato asked.

'Yes,' the doctor replied, 'but only for a few minutes, it's way past the visiting hours but I think that kid needs some cheering up. The only thing I need to ask you is to be quiet, there are patients who are asleep.'

'Of course,' Seisuke replied.

'In that case,' the doctor said, 'please follow me.'

Soon they found themselves in one of the rooms of the intensive care unit where lying on one of the six beds there, they saw Izawa with his left leg in a cast which was kept hoisted up and his head bandaged. The poor guy was staring at something he had in his hand and even from the door, they could tell he was crying. Seisuke bit his lower lip and frowned in worry while Masato licked his lips before he moved forward.

'Izawa,' he whispered.

He looked towards them and wiped his face using his other hand, which had a large plaster on it.

'Hey,' Izawa said.

'I'll leave you alone,' the doctor said with a low tone of voice, 'remember to be quiet,' he added pointing at the other beds where they saw another three patients sleeping, 'I'll come back in a few minutes, okay?'

'Thank you,' Seisuke whispered in reply.

With the doctor gone, both Seisuke and Masato walked closer to Izawa's bed and only then, they saw that the object he was holding onto was the key to his destroyed Vera TRD. Seisuke felt his heart cringe in pain.

'I take you've heard,' Izawa muttered quietly.

'Yeah,' Masato said.

'This is the only thing I have left of it,' Izawa said clutching the key.

'Izawa,' Seisuke whispered, 'do you have any idea of how lucky you've been? It's a miracle you're alive.'

'I know,' Izawa said, 'Doctor Sawahari said that he's never seen anything like that before.'

'Well,' Seisuke said, 'he's old enough to have seen a lot of things, so I'd trust him if I were you.'

'True,' Izawa agreed.

'Did you call your parents?' Masato asked.

'No way,' Izawa said with a slightly higher tone of voice then, lowering it, he added, 'my mother would just come and make a huge deal of this and my father would be pissed at me for crashing the car. I don't need that right now, besides, I don't want them to come here in the middle of the night, it's a really long drive.'

'But you're going to tell them, right?' Masato asked.

'I don't know,' Izawa replied.

'It's your call,' Seisuke said seeing that Masato was going to protest, 'you don't have to decide it now.'

'Yeah,' Izawa agreed.

'Do you remember what happened?' Seisuke then asked.

'Yeah,' Izawa replied, 'I was stuck at work until seven, I was rushing to get to Mt Akagi when I got an email. I only took my eyes off the road for a moment, just to see who was sending it and then BAM, a truck just hit me. I realised that I had probably passed a traffic light in red and that truck driver could do nothing to stop.'

'Brilliant,' Masato said looking extremely guilty, 'I was the one who sent you that email.'

'I know that,' Izawa replied, 'but it's not your fault, I'm a moron for not keeping my eyes on the road.'

'And,' Seisuke added talking to Masato, 'if anything it's Aniki's fault for asking you to send that email.'

'It doesn't matter,' Izawa said, 'I'm just…' he stopped speaking and a couple of tears fell down his cheeks.

'You're just happy you're alive, right?' Seisuke asked him with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

'Yeah,' the guy replied, 'but I'm also worried about what I'm going to do with my jobs.'

'Won't they let you take some time off?' Masato asked him.

'At my regular job yes,' Izawa replied, 'but at the fish market, I don't think so. They'll just hire someone else, besides, even when I get out of here and my leg heals, I still need a car to drive to my workplace.'

'That's not a problem,' Seisuke said, 'if you need a car, we can lend you one of the Centre's Vera.'

'What?' Izawa asked looking stunned.

'If it's temporary,' Seisuke explained, 'I don't think it'll be a problem. The cars are fully insured and they're road legal so you can take them out of the Centre. Besides, you did crash the car because of that email. I'm sure Aniki will feel really guilty when he finds out so, he'll probably beg you to accept that as compensation.'

'Are you sure?' Izawa insisted.

'Yes, I'm sure,' Seisuke replied, 'mind you, the Vera we have are not the TRD version you had but they're still fairly well equipped and I can guarantee you that they're regularly serviced by top-notch mechanics.'

'That'd be awesome,' Masato said grinning at Izawa.

'Yeah,' the man said smiling gratefully, 'but I'll still want to get a new car as soon as I can.'

'Of course,' Seisuke said, 'but until then, you know you have an alternative.'

Before Izawa could add anything else, Doctor Sawahari came back into the room and with a shooing gesture, he got Seisuke and Masato out of the room. The two men were only given the time to promise Izawa they would come and visit him as soon as they could and they both were happy when they saw that the guy looked infinitely cheerier than when they had entered the room. The doctor noticed that and said:

'I knew a quick visit from his friends would do wonders to that kid.'

A few days later, Junya and Shinji had just returned home from their job at the photographic studio when Junya received a call from Kyosuke telling him that they were having an emergency meeting at the Centre.

'Now?' Shinji asked.

'Apparently,' Junya replied, 'come on, let's get going or we'll be late.'

'Alright,' the younger man replied sounding a little grumpy.

'What's up with you today?' Junya asked, 'you've been in a bad mood all day.'

'Nothing,' Shinji replied and, grabbing the keys to his kei-car, he made his way to the entrance.

Junya stared at him for a bit before he decided to just ignore him. The kid was probably just having a bad day and it was better to just let him be. At any rate, he was curious as to the reason why Kyosuke had scheduled an emergency meeting only a week after their Ibaraki challenge. Surely he hadn't had the time to receive another one so soon. Or maybe, Kyosuke had decided to organise a second series of challenges at the Centre, one where that brat would be taking part and, if that was the case…

'Junya-san?' an impatient sounding Shinji asked him from the door, 'are you coming or not?'

'Yes,' he replied.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Shinji shook his head and started making his way down the stairs and towards his car then, in an uncharacteristic display of bad manners, he climbed into the Honda, turned its engine on and took off before even waiting for his landlord to be inside his own car.

'What the hell?' a surprised and slightly pissed Junya muttered.

Rushing towards his Nissan, he jumped into it and a few seconds later, he was already in pursue of the much smaller car. Needless to say, with the S18 being a lot more powerful than the Beat, he easily caught Shinji and then he tried to hail him on their radio frequency, to no avail, the kid had turned his radio off.

Deciding that he'd give him a good telling off as soon as they got to the Centre, Junya just limited himself with overtaking the Honda with an easy but highly aggressive manoeuvre which probably scared the hell out of Shinji. He didn't care, if that kid though he could be this rude to him without paying the consequences…

Ten minutes later, they drove their cars into the Centre's parking area and there, he saw something which almost made him crash his car against one of the ones belonging to his fellow Golden Arrows members. Pinned on top of the Centre's main entrance, he saw a huge multicoloured banner with the following text:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHINJI-KUN!

Feeling like crap, Junya started realising the reason why his protégé had been acting up all day and when he climbed out of the car, he saw that his team mates were all there, waiting for Shinji with a birthday cake.

'Shinji…' he started saying.

'Guys,' he said ignoring Junya, 'how did you…how did you know?'

'I can't take the credit for any of this,' Kyosuke told him, 'these two rascals organised everything.'

The two rascals were Yuta and Shige who looked very pleased with themselves.

'We're sorry about this cake,' Yuta explained showing him a very tasty looking one covered with white icing.

'We tried to ask the lady at the shop if she could do something more original,' Shige continued.

'But she said that she couldn't do a UFO shaped one in such short notice,' Yuta finished.

'How hard can it be, eh?' Shige asked looking at Yuta with an almost offended look while Yuta nodded.

'Guys…' Shinji repeated, this time looking like he was going to cry.

'Okay,' Seisuke intervened, 'you two,' he added talking to the UFO boys, 'get that cake back inside.'

'Yes,' Kyosuke added, 'let's all go inside for now.'

'After that,' Seisuke continued, 'we thought of re-doing a few of the challenges we did last year.'

'Since you weren't here,' Eiji said to Shinji, 'we thought we'd see what you can do with your Beat.'

'Thanks guys,' Shinji said smiling like he'd never smiled before.

Seeing that smile made Junya feel even guiltier but then, he noticed that three people were missing, Izawa who was at the hospital, Kizuna who probably was visiting him again and, more importantly, the brat.

'Where's Fujiwara?' Junya asked to Kyosuke on their way in.

'He's training,' Kyosuke replied.

'He's got a very important race coming up,' Seisuke explained.

'That's right,' Masato said, 'if he wins this one…'

'…he'll be F3 champion,' Eiji finished.

'That's right,' Kyosuke confirmed looking proud.

'I see,' Junya muttered almost as if he were talking to himself.

Shinji glared at him and, while everyone got ready to celebrate his birthday and while Shige and Yuta, to everyone's horror, offered to light up the cake's nineteen candles, he walked up to Junya and ordered him:

'Come with me.'

Surprised by the harsh tone of voice, Junya followed the younger guy until they were out of hearing range.

'Shinji…'

'No,' the younger guy interrupted him, 'I'm going to do the talking, if you don't mind.'

'Shinji…'

'Look,' Shinji said, 'I'm even prepared to accept that you forgot my birthday even though you were the one who helped me with the emancipation papers and therefore were well aware of when my birthday is. I'm not even that disappointed that Yuta-san and Shigeru-san were the only ones who remembered my birthday even though I only told them once a really long time go. In fact, I'm grateful they did because this is the first time I get a birthday party ever since my mother passed away when I was ten.'

He stopped talking only to get some more air.

'What I'm not going to tolerate is seeing you making a fool of yourself over Fujiwara-kun.'

'What…'

'Junya-san,' Shinji interrupted him and, this time, he looked more sad than angry, 'don't you realise that you're chasing after the impossible? Fujiwara-kun doesn't even have his driving license yet. Instead of trying to challenge him to a race here at the Centre, wouldn't you prefer racing him out on one of the passes?'

'Of course I would,' Junya admitted.

'Then,' Shinji continued, 'please forget about Fujiwara-kun now. Wait for him until he has his driving license and then challenge him to a proper race. Excuse me for saying that but what you're doing now is pathetic.'

Shinji stopped talking and, just then, he swallowed and bit his lower lip knowing that he'd overdone it a bit.

He got even more worried when he saw that for the longest time Junya didn't even try to speak.

'Shinji,' he finally said sounding very serious, 'you're right.'

'I am?' he dared to ask.

'Yes,' Junya said, 'and I'm sorry I forgot about your birthday.'

'It's okay now,' Shinji said.

'No it's not,' Junya countered, 'I should have been the one organising this party.'

'Well,' a slightly emotional Shinji said, 'I do have a birthday every year, you know?'

'True,' Junya said smiling at him, 'but, for now, let's just celebrate this one.'

Shinji nodded and, following the older man, he got ready to celebrate his birthday with his friends.

_To be continued…_


	54. Chapter Fifty Three

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty Three_

A week after his seventeenth birthday, Akito was officially crowned Formula 3 National Class Champion having won eleven of the fourteen rounds of the season and, a few days later at a ceremony organised by the Japanese Automobile Federation, he was given a diploma and a trophy that certified such an important achievement, especially for such a young racer.

Shortly after that, on the first Saturday of November, the Fujiwara family travelled to the Takahashi Motorsports Centre where Kyoko had insisted they'd celebrate the happy event in a private manner. This, of course, meant that the whole Takahashi clan, a few of the Centre's most important customers and some of the Golden Arrows members were all in attendance together with a bunch of other friends.

Akito and his father looked horrified seeing the large amount of cars lined up at the Centre's car park.

'Wasn't this supposed to be a small party?' Akito asked while they walked towards the main building.

'Yes, it was,' Takumi confirmed.

'Oh well,' Natsuki said looking ready to have fun, 'we're here so we might as well enjoy ourselves.'

'Oniichan,' Haruko said still holding onto her brother's trophy, 'are we going to put this next to mine?'

'Of course,' Akito replied, 'but we'll leave yours in front so people can see it better, okay?'

A smiling Haruko nodded once and, with this, she proceeded to walk up the stairs as quickly as she could while being careful not to drop the cup. Her family just followed and soon, all four Fujiwara walked into the hall where Keisuke and Kyoko waited for them with their daughter who was talking to her best friend Yayoi.

'Akito,' Ryoko exclaimed spotting her boyfriend, 'you're so late!'

'Sorry,' he apologised.

'That was my fault,' Natsuki said, 'I just didn't know what to wear.'

'You look lovely,' Kyoko commented looking at her friend, 'where did you get those shoes?'

Soon, the two women started talking about some new shop which had just opened in Shibukawa and before Ryoko could even think of taking part in the conversation, her two cousins arrived with Masato, Kei, Eiji and Yuta who kept staring at his watch as if he was waiting for someone who was even later than Akito himself.

While their wives got busy chatting to the Centre's customers, Keisuke and Takumi helped little Haruko place her brother's trophy immediately behind the little Karting Junior Cup she had won in September. They then hung the diploma given to Akito by the Federation before they locked up the glass panels of the display.

'If he keeps this up,' Keisuke commented with a hint of pride, 'we're going to need a bigger display.'

Takumi nodded while he looked at the growing amount of trophies which were adding to the ones he and Keisuke had won during their years as professional racers. He then glanced at his children and smiling, he said:

'Yes, we're definitely going to need a bigger display.

Not far from there, Akito was talking to his two best friends while they drank some exotic fruit juice.

'So,' Kyosuke asked, 'have you decided what you'll do next year?'

'Not yet,' Akito said.

'What's to decide?' Seisuke asked, 'the only way is up so, I'd go for that testing thing in GP2.'

'It's not so easy,' Akito explained.

'What are you worried about?' Kyosuke asked him.

'I…' Akito started then, trying to select his answer, he said, 'I just turned seventeen.'

'So?' Seisuke asked.

'Well,' Akito said, 'I didn't exactly have a smooth sailing when I first started in F3, mainly because some people thought that I was too young. I can't imagine what it'd be like if I move up to GP2 now. There are racers there who are in their mid twenties. If they see a kid like me…'

'That's just silly,' Ryoko intervened, 'didn't you tell me that those guys…er…Hi…what was his name again?'

'Taguchi Hideki and Marko Schulz,' Akito supplied.

'Yes,' Ryoko continued, 'they were horrible to you at first but didn't they go to see you at the end of the last race of the season so that they could congratulate you for winning the championship?'

'Yes, they did,' Akito admitted.

'Then,' Ryoko concluded, 'if you have the same problems in GP2, you can only shut those people up by showing them that you have as much right to be there as they do. Then everything will be just fine.'

'She does have a point,' Kyosuke observed.

'I don't know,' Akito replied.

'Hey,' Seisuke said, 'it's just a thought but, wouldn't it be that you're reluctant to move to GP2 because of you-know-what?'

Akito looked at him for a bit then, shaking his head, he replied:

'No, I don't think Guelfi-san's death has anything to do with it.'

'Alright,' Seisuke said, 'but just so you know, I think that our baby cousin is right, you've got nothing to fear.'

'There's no rush though,' Kyosuke commented, 'after all, you don't have to make the decision immediately.'

'No,' Akito confirmed, 'Tanaka-san gave me until the end of the month to decide.'

Their conversation went on for a bit until it was interrupted by Kyoko who, stepping onto the small stage set up at a corner and using a mike, she summoned Akito there, to everyone's enjoyment and the poor kid's horror.

'Come on,' Ryoko said giving him a little push.

Giving her a terrified look, the girl took pity on him and decided to take his hand and go up there together.

'Akito-kun sure is amazing,' Yayoi commented to the person who was standing next to her.

'That's right,' Eiji agreed, 'winning the F3 title when he's so young…'

'Who's talking about racing?' Yayoi asked him, 'I meant Ryoko, he has her wrapped around his little finger.'

'Who are you?' Eiji then asked.

'Akanishi Yayoi,' the girl replied, 'Ryoko's best friend, you?'

'Watanabe Eiji,' he said, 'I'm a in… I'm in Kyosuke-san's team.'

'The Golden Arrows?' Yayoi asked him.

'You know about that?' Eiji asked looking surprised.

'Of course,' Yayoi replied, 'Ryoko's told me all about it and about the fact that Akito-kun can't wait to join in.'

'That's right,' Eiji said, 'we're all looking forward to that day.'

'So,' Yayoi continued, 'you're quite the racing freak too, aren't you?'

'We prefer the term petrol-heads,' Eiji corrected, 'but yes, I am. Do you have any problem with that?'

'Absolutely not,' Yayoi replied shaking her head, 'in fact, I'm rather curious about that kind of stuff.'

'Are you?' Eiji asked.

'Yes,' Yayoi said, 'I've been meaning to ask Ryoko to take me along sometime but since Akito-kun doesn't seem to be going to your…what is it that you call them?'

'Gatherings,' Eiji supplied.

'That's right,' Yayoi said, 'well, I'd like to go to one but…'

'Why don't you?' Eiji asked and then, half-joking, he added, 'there's one tonight, why don't you come along?'

'Where is it?' Yayoi asked.

'Mt Usui,' Eiji said then something made him ask, 'if you want to come, I'll take you there myself.'

'Really?' Yayoi asked.

'Yeah,' Eiji replied, 'I mean, if you want.'

'Sure, why not?' Yayoi said offering him a smile.

'That's a deal then,' Eiji said returning it.

'Alright,' Yayoi said, 'you'll probably find me with Ryoko, don't go before you do!'

'I won't,' Eiji promised.

With that and seeing that Ryoko was helping a very embarrassed Akito to get down the stage, an excited looking Yayoi walked away towards her best friend exchanging a few words with her while Akito did his best to recover from his latest attention overdose.

'Eiji,' Kei said after witnessing the entire exchange, 'you know what you're doing, right?'

'What?' Eiji asked him.

'Well,' Kei said, 'that girl's Ryoko-chan's best friend and…she's only seventeen and you're nearly twenty one.'

'I know,' Eiji replied.

'Okay,' Kei said, 'as long as you know.'

'Hey,' Eiji said, 'I'm just taking her to the gathering, there's nothing more to it.'

'If you say so,' Kei said not sounding entirely convinced.

A couple of hours later, the members of the Golden Arrows in attendance excused themselves from the party and, soon, they walked out of the building so that they could go to retrieve their cars. Akito and Ryoko had also decided to go to Mt Usui with them and the girl was shocked when Yayoi told her she was coming too.

'Watanabe-san offered to take me there,' Yayoi informed her.

'He did?' Ryoko asked eyeing Eiji who was now talking to Masato.

'Yes,' Yayoi said, 'he's very cute too so, I'm doubly lucky.'

'Yayoi,' Ryoko warned her, 'be careful with him, he's…well…he's had his heart broken before and…'

'Hey,' Yayoi interrupted her, 'it's not like I want to marry him! It's just some fun, relax, okay?'

Ryoko frowned a bit seeing her best friend rushing to where Eiji was and looked even more worried when she saw Eiji being the gentleman he was going to get the passenger's door open so that she could climb in.

'What's up?' Akito asked her.

'Nothing, I hope,' Ryoko replied.

'Well,' Akito said, 'I'm going up with Kyosuke, you'll get there with Seisuke, right?'

'It looks like it,' Ryoko confirmed.

'Alright,' Akito replied then, glancing around himself to make sure no one was watching, he gave her a quick kiss and, like every single time they had to ride separate, he said, 'gosh, I can't wait to have my own car!'

'Just one more year,' Ryoko reminded him with an understanding smile.

'Yes, one more year,' Akito repeated.

The two of them walked away from each other and soon, Ryoko was onboard Seisuke's RZ-1, following the yellow version which belonged to his older brother. She noticed that her cousin looked a little annoyed.

'What's up with you?' she asked him.

'Nothing,' he replied.

'Kaori?' she insisted.

'What part of nothing don't you understand?' Seisuke snapped at her.

'The part that's making you so upset,' an unfazed Ryoko replied, 'did you have another argument?'

'I wish,' Seisuke replied.

'What's happened now?' Ryoko asked.

Seisuke sighed and said:

'The usual, she had this party planned and I forgot to tell her about the gathering.'

'And of course, you chose to go to the gathering instead of going to her party,' Ryoko said trying not to sound accusing.

'More or less,' Seisuke replied, 'I told her I'd show up a bit later. It's a good compromise, right?'

'Not really,' Ryoko said.

'Thanks,' Seisuke said sarcastically, 'that helps a lot.'

'I'm just being honest,' Ryoko countered, 'I too would get upset if I organised a party and Akito chose to go somewhere else instead.'

'That's not true and you know it,' Seisuke said.

'Well, I…'

'Just forget it,' Seisuke told her, 'I'll go to Usui, stay there for a couple of hours and then I'll go to that freaking party. If she can't be happy with that, then there's nothing I can do about it, is there?'

This time Ryoko chose not to reply and remained quiet for the rest of the trip to the beautiful Mt Usui enjoying its night view while they climbed up the famous mountain pass following Kyosuke's RZ-1. Ryoko noticed that there were quite a few people standing here and there at some of the corners, including the infamous C-121. She noticed how Seisuke smiled a little, just before he decided to send the car into a drift.

'Don't do that,' Ryoko protested.

'Come on,' Seisuke said, 'you like this stuff, you just won't admit it.'

'I do,' she replied, 'but if I get sufficient warning.'

'Alright, alright,' Seisuke laughed, 'consider yourself warned.'

Just then, as they went into a right-hander, Seisuke followed his older brother and the two RZ-1s covered the corner using the sort of parallel drift which had made their father and uncle famous all over Gunma.

'What?' Seisuke asked seeing his cousin trying to catch her breath.

'Nothing,' she said with a very small voice.

He then laughed at her and it was with that sort of good mood that they got to the top of the pass. There they found some of the cars belonging to their hosts, the Nagano Alliance, a few of the Myogi Devils and a dark grey car they had never seen before. Parked alongside it, they saw Kizuna's dark grey 350Z with the girl standing next to it talking to the other car's owner, fellow Golden Arrows member Izawa Daichi.

'So,' Seisuke said while he parked his Mazda, 'this is what's been keeping those two busy.'

Climbing out of the RZ-1s, Kyosuke, Seisuke, Akito and Ryoko soon joined Kizuna and Izawa.

'Is that what I think it is?' Kyosuke asked Kizuna.

'Yes,' the girl said with a huge grin on her face.

'Do you like it?' Izawa asked to his team leader.

'I don't think I've ever driven one of those before,' Kyosuke replied, 'but I do like it, nice work you two.'

'Thanks,' Kizuna replied feeling ten inches taller, 'but Izawa did a lot of work too.'

'That's rubbish,' he protested, 'I got us the parts and I provided moral support, mostly.'

'Well,' Kizuna said, 'you had a broken leg, it's not like you could do much more than that.'

'I have a question,' Seisuke announced, 'why did you get a DC5? I mean, I thought you were a Toyota man.'

'I still am,' Izawa replied, 'but I got this car for almost nothing.'

'How so?' Kei asked finally joining the group with the rest of the Arrows, including Eiji and Yayoi.

'You'll never believe me,' Izawa replied.

'Tell them anyway,' Kizuna encouraged him.

'Alright,' Izawa complied, 'while I was recovering at the hospital, this old nurse came up to me saying that she'd heard about my car and she asked me if I would be interested in an old car she'd had in her garage since like forever. To be honest,' he said, 'I wasn't too interested, thinking that it was going to be something like a Micra or worse but then, she showed me a picture and I saw that it was a 2007 Integra Type-R. When I told the nurse that it was a really good car, she told me she had bought it using some of the money she got from her divorce because she thought it was good looking but then, she never really used it because she grew frightened of it and because, after all, she didn't really need it.'

'Why didn't she sell it?' Eiji asked him.

'She never got around to doing it,' Kizuna replied.

'And by the time she remembered about it,' Izawa continued, 'someone told her that the car wasn't worth the trouble.'

'What happened next?' Seisuke asked.

'She decided it wasn't bothering her and she just left it there, sitting in her garage until she heard about me,' Izawa replied.

'So, how much did you pay for it?' Kyosuke asked.

'Nothing,' he replied with a grateful smile, 'just the towing truck, a new set of tyres and the parts it needed to work again; and then I had to pay for the taxes, the insurance and the test the motoring agency did to make sure it still qualified to be roadworthy. I'm lucky because the compensation money I got for the Vera covered most of the costs so, thanks to Kizuna and the fact that she did all the work for free, I didn't need to spend the fortune I would have had to spend on a brand new car.'

'And it's a really good machine,' Kizuna added, 'it runs really smooth and it's fast enough.'

'Well,' Kyosuke said admiring the dark grey car, 'if you don't mind, I'd like to have a go.'

'Really?' a startled Izawa asked.

'Su-,' Kyosuke started but he hadn't even completed the word when he found the key to the Integra in his hand and a very eager Izawa practically bobbing with excitement. Kyosuke laughed and said, 'let's go then.'

'Izawa…' Kizuna warned him.

'Hey,' he said, 'I'm not going to drive, Kyosuke-san is.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said and, talking to her boyfriend, she explained, 'he can only drive normally, no racing or anything similar just yet. The car might be able to cope with it but his leg isn't fully recovered, okay?'

'Duly noted,' Kyosuke replied with a smile.

'She's such a Team Mum,' Seisuke muttered talking to the guys.

'I heard that,' Kizuna said making them all snigger.

Seeing the Golden Arrows leader climbing into a car which wasn't his RZ-1 got the attention of several outsiders, including Hirota Yasuo and Matsushita Jin from the Nagano Alliance who decided to join the fun.

'What's going on?' Yasuo asked them with a friendly smile.

'Just a test drive,' Seisuke replied.

'Oh,' Jin said, 'I don't want to miss that.'

Before they could stop him, the guy rushed all the way to his black Impreza GR and climbed into it just as Kyosuke had started his downhill run with Izawa's DC5 disappearing around the first corner of Usui followed by the Subaru. Everyone in the Golden Arrows exchanged a worried glance but, seeing that, Yasuo said:

'Chill guys, he won't want to race your leader.'

'But…'

'He just wants to see his driving close up.'

'But Kyosuke-san is not driving his usual car,' Masato pointed out.

'It's not a good pen that makes a good calligrapher,' Yasuo replied.

'He's right,' Seisuke said, 'Aniki doesn't need the RZ-1 to drive fast.'

'I can confirm that too,' Akito added.

All members of the Golden Arrows silently agreed and, just then, they all felt a sudden rush of jealousy towards Izawa wishing that they too could get their leader to test drive their cars as well. An amused Seisuke was observing their expressions when he heard his mobile phone. It was Kaori's personal ring tone.

Walking away from the group, he pressed to answer the call trying not to sound too annoyed:

'Kaori, what's up?'

'I don't feel too good,' he heard his girlfriend saying with a very slurry voice.

'Have you been drinking?' Seisuke asked her lowering his voice even more.

'I think so,' Kaori replied.

Seisuke heard her making a sound which was half moaning half crying and then someone else spoke.

'Sorry, I'm Kaori's friend,' a female voice said, 'she really isn't feeling well, can you come to pick her up?'

Hearing that managed to convert his initial annoyance into deep concern and, sounding serious, he said:

'You're at the Gunma Women's University Hall, aren't you?'

'That's right,' the girl replied, 'hurry up.'

The girl then closed the call and without pausing to think twice, Seisuke started rushing back to his car.

'Where are you going?' he heard Ryoko asking him.

'Kaori just called me,' Seisuke explained while he opened the door, 'she's not feeling well.'

'Why did she call you?' Ryoko asked him.

'Because I'm her boyfriend,' Seisuke replied with more than a hint of sarcasm.

'Why didn't she call an ambulance?' Ryoko asked ignoring her cousin's tone.

'Look,' Seisuke said impatiently, 'I don't know, okay? I'm going now, please let Aniki know, alright?'

'Sure,' a worried Ryoko replied.

With that, Seisuke got onboard his car and a second later, Ryoko saw him rushing down the road.

'Where is he going?' Akito asked her.

While Ryoko explained what had just happened a sick with worry Seisuke was driving down Mt Usui as fast as he could. He even got to the base of the pass just as Izawa's dark grey Integra and Jin's black Impreza GR were turning round so that they could start their climb back to the summit. Kyosuke saw his younger brother but since Izawa's car didn't have a radio installed, he had to get his mobile phone out to call him.

Seisuke did see the incoming call but chose to ignore it.

Instead, he focused all his energies in getting back to Maebashi as fast as he could and within less than half an hour, breaking every speed limit he found, he parked outside the university hall where the students of Gunma Women's University held all their parties. He saw several dressed up people coming out but no sign of Kaori. Snatching the seatbelt open, Seisuke ran towards the entrance where he found a pair of bouncers.

'Can I see your invite?' one of them asked.

'Oh shit,' he whispered, 'I left it in the car,' he told them.

'Well,' the bouncer said, 'this party is by invitation only, if you…'

Swearing at them, Seisuke turned round and ran towards the RZ-1. Taking the fancy envelope out of the glove compartment where he'd kept it, he rushed back to the entrance, practically throwing it at the bouncer's face.

'Here's your damn invite,' he hissed furiously.

Without waiting for them to check it, he ran into the hall looking around himself in a frenzy, hoping that he would spot Kaori or one of her many girlfriends. He rushed all over the room without success. It was only then that it occurred to his quickly panicking brain that he had to use his mobile phone to call her.

'Where are you?' he asked the instant someone picked it up.

'We're in the first floor bathroom,' the same female voice from before said.

'Alright,' Seisuke replied.

Locating the stairs, he jumped two steps at a time and, at long last, he saw the door to the ladies' bathroom. Forgetting about the fact that he was a man, he just barged in and, there, lying on the floor looking clearly unconscious, he saw his girlfriend Kaori with her head on top of one of her girlfriend's knees.

'How long has she been unconscious?' he asked her kneeling next to the two girls.

'A while,' the girl said.

'What happened?' Seisuke asked while he started checking for Kaori's vital signs.

Her pulse was weak and she looked like she had been vomiting.

'I don't know,' the girl replied with a shaky voice, 'one minute she was fine, then she started feeling weird.'

'Did you guys drink anything strange?' Seisuke asked.

'Yes,' the girl replied, 'a few guys offered us some drinks and…'

'Alright,' Seisuke said, 'that's more than enough.'

With the full picture in his head, he took Kaori's limp form in his arms and standing up, the girl asked him:

'Where are you taking her?'

'Where do you think?' Seisuke snapped.

'You can't take her to the hospital,' the girl said, 'if the University finds out she'll be expelled.'

'I know that,' Seisuke replied, 'my parents own the Arakawa Hospital, that's where I'm going to take her.'

Without wasting any more time, he started walking down the stairs and out of the Hall, bypassing the two bouncers who had enough good sense to not intervene. Thanks to that, Seisuke had Kaori onboard the RZ-1 in no time and a few seconds later, he was already on his way to the hospital where he had been born.

'Seisuke…' he heard Kaori moaning.

'I'm right here baby,' he said trying to soothe her, 'I'm right here.'

'Seisuke…' she repeated.

'It's going to be alright,' he said with a lump forming in his throat, 'you're going to be alright, my love.'

Silently, he prayed while fear, apprehension and guilt became so strong he felt himself suffocating.

Forcing himself not to think about anything but driving, he went along the busy streets of Maebashi damning everything which got in his way. It wasn't until ten minutes later that he finally arrived at the entrance of the Accident and Emergency department of the Arakawa Hospital, he stopped there and rushed out of his car but by the time he got to the other side of the RZ-1, two members of the hospital's highly efficient staff were already out of the building pushing a wheelchair for the incoming patient.

'What do we have in here?' one of them asked Seisuke.

'Her name is Kurosawa Kaori, she's nineteen, blood group AB+, no known allergies,' Seisuke recited while they pushed Kaori into the hospital's building, 'she's ingested a large dose of alcohol and presumably some unknown drugs. She's been unconscious for over forty five minutes but presented the signs of enforced emesis when I found her.'

'Alright,' the nurse said looking rather impressed with his report.

'Please hurry up,' Seisuke begged them, 'she's my girlfriend.'

'Well do our best,' the man assured him.

As they pushed Kaori through the double white doors, Seisuke saw someone walking towards them that made his heart sink: out of all the nights she could be around the A&E department, his mother had to pick that one.

_To be continued…_


	55. Chapter Fifty Four

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty Four_

'Sweetie,' Akiko said, 'is she who I think she is?'

'Yes, Mum,' Seisuke replied. 'please help her, she's…she has…'

'We've got all the details,' one of the members of the staff said.

Had it not been because the dreadful situation he found himself in, Seisuke would have laughed seeing the change in the way the two orderlies were now looking at him having found out about his relationship with the hospital's owners. At any rate, they were professional enough to give all the relevant information to their superior in a most efficient manner.

'Wait there,' Akiko told him after listening to them, 'we'll talk later.'

Feeling worse than if he'd crashed his RZ-1 against his older brother's, Seisuke proceeded to walk the short distance which separated him from the A&E waiting room. There, he found just a couple of other people who looked bored and sleepy. Taking a seat, he tried hard not to think about the state in which he'd found Kaori and, instead, he focused on trying to find a way to explain everything to his mother so that he could be ready when she came to speak to him. Ten minutes went by and he still hadn't found a plausible enough explanation when he saw the other person he had hoped not to see stepping into the room.

'Dad,' he said looking rather apprehensive, 'you're here too?'

'Yes, son,' Ryosuke replied calmly, 'your mother has just told me about your girlfriend, er...' he seemed to have an unusually hard time saying her name, 'Kaori,' he nearly spat, 'she seemed to be in considerable trouble when you brought her here,' he added. 'Now, I know your mother wants us to discuss this with you as family but, as a doctor, I would like you to explain to me your version of the facts so that I can draw my own conclusions.'

Seisuke swallowed hard.

'Dad,' he started, 'I…I was up in Mt Usui, there was a gathering there and then Kaori called me telling me that she wasn't feeling well. By the time I got to where she was, she was already unconscious, her friend told me that some guys offered them drinks and that Kaori started feeling poorly shortly after drinking hers.'

'In short,' Ryosuke said, 'your girlfriend was drinking an alcoholic drink in spite of being under the legal age to do so.'

'Yes,' Seisuke said knowing better than to try and lie to his father.

'Seisuke,' the doctor said looking even more serious than usual, 'you do know she would be expelled if the University found out about that, don't you?'

'Yes, I do,' Seisuke replied.

'And you do know that if the University starts a formal enquiry, we will have to report this incident to them, don't you?'

'Yes, I do, 'Seisuke repeated.

'We also need to inform her parents,' Ryosuke said ignoring his son's dejected tone, 'you haven't called them, yet, have you?'

'Not yet,' Seisuke replied, 'I wanted to wait until Kaori woke up and she could decide what to do.'

'Are you asking me not to tell them anything either?'

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'please Dad, I don't want her to get in trouble and…'

'Seisuke,' he interrupted him, 'she is already in trouble, I think that as a doctor it is my duty to…'

'Please, Dad,' Seisuke said getting up, 'I'm begging you, don't tell them yet.'

Ryosuke observed his youngest son for a short while and, taking a deep breath, he said:

'Alright, I'm willing to trust you with this but make sure this is the last time something like that happens.'

'I give you my word,' Seisuke promised sounding dead serious.

His father said nothing to that and Seisuke, feeling like it was finally safe to ask, he said:

'What are they doing to Kaori?'

'The usual treatment,' Ryosuke replied, 'your mother's team is performing a gastric lavage and she'll be given some activated charcoal as well as a cathartic agent to make sure we stop the drug absorption as much as possible. They're also running a full spectrum fluids test to evaluate how much harm have the drugs caused to her brain in order to rule out any brain damage.'

'Brain damage?' Seisuke asked widening his eyes with terror.

'Seisuke,' his father said once again looking disappointed in him, 'do I need to explain to you the list of potentially fatal effects a drug can have on any given bodily tissue?'

'No, you don't,' Seisuke replied.

'Then you should know that most drugs' molecules affect the cerebral tissue more than any other part of the body.'

'I know that too,' he said starting to feel sick.

'It's too soon to tell,' Ryosuke continued, 'but it looks like she vomited most of what she drank before she became unconscious so she will probably be fine.'

Seisuke could only nod and, just as things could not get any worse, his mother came into the room.

'Doctor Sumiyoshi is now taking care of her,' Akiko said talking to her husband.

'Mum…'

'Please sit down,' Akiko said now talking to the two of them.

Father and son complied and she sat down in front of them. Only then she looked at Seisuke.

'Seisuke,' she started, 'I take your father has already spoken to you as a doctor.'

'Yes, he has,' he replied with an anguished voice.

'Alright,' she said and, just then, she went back to being a concerned mother, 'how are you?'

'Me?'

'Yes,' Akiko replied, 'I don't think watching your girlfriend in that state was in any way fun so, how are you?'

Seisuke stared at his mother and seeing her worried expression made him feel so much worse that, before he could stop them, he had tears coming out of his eyes starting a silent weep.

'Son,' Ryosuke said placing his hand onto Seisuke's trembling shoulder.

'I thought she was going to die,' Seisuke cried, 'I…I didn't know what to do…'

'Son,' Ryosuke repeated, 'you did the right thing, the only thing you could have done to help her.'

'That's right,' Akiko confirmed, 'even if you were a full-fledged doctor, there wasn't much more you could do.'

'But…'

'Seisuke,' his mother continued, 'we just want you to promise us one thing.'

'Anything,' Seisuke said sniffing a bit.

'You need to have a long talk with your girlfriend,' Ryosuke told him.

'What she's done is stupid,' Akiko added, 'drinking from a glass given to you by a stranger is dangerous.'

'I know,' Seisuke said.

'Alright,' Akiko said, 'we've got work to do but I'll make sure you're the first to know when she wakes up.'

'And if you need anything,' Ryosuke continued, 'just ask one of the nurses.'

Seisuke nodded and, seeing his parents getting up, he got up too and with a deep bow, he said:

'Mum, Dad, thank you very much, for everything.'

When he got back up, his mother reached up to place both of her tiny hands on each side of his face.

'I'm just happy it wasn't you,' she said with her usual brutal honesty.

Seisuke could tell that while his father didn't say it in so many words, he shared his wife's opinion too.

With that, the two doctors left him in the room and only then he noticed that the two people there no longer looked so bored. Ignoring them, he got up so that he could go outside and get some much needed fresh air. Stepping out of the building, he found that his car was still parked there right by the main entrance so, getting inside it, he moved it out of the way. He then turned the engine off and leaning his head against the headrest, he spent several minutes thinking about the conversation he'd just had with his parents. If he had to be honest, he didn't know what to make of the whole thing. He had expected them to be furious with him, to ground him for the eternity, to even send his car to the scrap yard or something equally cruel.

Instead, his parents had been nothing but understanding, calm and collected while listening to him and had trusting him to know what was the best course of action. Not only but he knew that he had also managed to make them worry so much that it only made him feel ten thousand times worse than he did when he'd found Kaori unconscious. The thought that he had been so close to losing her hit him with a new wave of angst that brought a new batch of tears up to his eyes. He just couldn't bear to lose her, not when he loved her as much as he did.

Half an hour later and nursing the start of a migraine, he walked back into the hospital and there he saw a young doctor coming towards him.

'Hi,' the doctor said, 'you're Takahashi Seisuke-san, aren't you?'

'Yes, I am,' Seisuke replied, 'are you Doctor Sumiyoshi?'

'That's right,' he confirmed, 'your parents asked me to find you, it's a good thing you look so much like your father,' he commented offering him a smile, 'anyway, I just wanted to inform you that Kurosawa-san is awake now.'

'She is?' Seisuke asked, 'is she…is she okay?'

'She is fine,' a still smiling Doctor Sumiyoshi replied, 'she's feeling a bit sore due to the treatment and she's understandably tired but, other than that, it looks like the drugs didn't cause any permanent damage to her tissues.'

Seisuke felt so relieved he had to lean against the wall for support.

'We're currently giving her some saline and she will stay under observation for the next twenty four hours but, providing she recovers her strength, she will be released from the hospital in about a couple of days.'

'Can I see her?' Seisuke asked him.

'Theoretically speaking, no,' he replied, 'but your parents have asked me to make an exception.'

'Thank you,' Seisuke said.

'You're welcome,' Doctor Sumiyoshi replied, 'now, if you please follow me.'

Seisuke didn't need to be told twice and a few minutes later, the young doctor took him to one of the single rooms used by the less critical A&E patients. Opening the door, he saw Kaori already dressed in one of the hospital gowns, half covered by a white duvet and with a saline container hanging just above her head.

'Hey,' he whispered.

'I'll be just outside, in case you need me,' Doctor Sumiyoshi said before closing the door.

'Kaori,' Seisuke tried again, this time getting closer to the bed, 'it's me.'

Only then, Kaori turned round to face him. The fury on her eyes made him stop dead right where he was.

'Kaori…'

'Are you happy now?' she asked him, her voice sounded rough because of the gastric lavage.

'Kao…'

'I finally met your parents,' she spat, 'dressed like this,' she added pointing at her hospital gown.

'Baby, I…'

Kaori started crying and Seisuke tried getting a little closer. He stopped when she said:

'Do you ever consider my feelings?'

'What?' he breathed, 'of course I do,'

'I don't think so,' she countered.

'Kaori…'

'You always put everything before me,' she complained.

'That's not true,' he said even though he knew she was at least partially right.

'It is,' she countered, 'if you had been at the party with me none of this would have happened.'

'That's not fair…'

'Fair?' Kaori cried bitterly, 'don't you dare talking about fair, Seisuke!'

'Kaori…'

'Is it fair,' she asked, 'that that American girl who's been your brother's girlfriend for five minutes is treated by your family like a daughter while I, your girlfriend of over three years, is still a virtual stranger to them?'

'Kaori…'

'And tell me Seisuke,' she continued, 'is it fair that I had to meet your parents in these circumstances?'

Swallowing had, he shook his head and said:

'No, it isn't.'

'Then don't talk to me about being fair,' she finished.

'Can I speak now?' he asked trying to keep any sarcastic edge out of his tone of voice.

'If you must,' she said.

'Alright,' he started, 'to begin with, can you explain the reason why you accepted a drink from strangers?'

'Oh come on,' she protested, 'don't play the jealous boyfriend with me…'

'I'm not doing any such thing,' Seisuke defended himself, 'I just want to know why you did something as stupid and as dangerous as that. You know better than to accept anything a stranger gives you so, why did you do it?'

'Because it was fun,' she cried, 'because I was trying to have fun. You weren't there and I felt lonely so it was really nice when those guys offered to buy us some drinks. That's all there was to it, just a bit of fun.'

'Except that you nearly died because of it,' Seisuke pointed out.

'And who's fault is that?' Kaori asked.

'Not mine!' Seisuke exclaimed, 'I wasn't even there!'

'Precisely,' she said.

'You're being ridiculous now,' Seisuke said trying to calm down.

'That's your line for when you know you're wrong,' she countered.

'Kaori,' he tried again, 'what you did was stupid, at least admit that much.'

'You just can't be supportive of me, not even when I'm at the hospital, can you?' she asked him.

'Kaori, I'm just…'

'Just leave me alone,' Kaori interrupted.

Seisuke felt like he'd just been slapped and for the longest five seconds of his life, he considered telling her how he'd felt when he'd seen her unconscious in that damn bathroom, he also wanted to tell her that no mater what she thought, he did really love her and that he knew damn well he was being very selfish but that all he wanted from her was the kind of patience and unconditional support he'd seen his parents give to one another. Alas, he just couldn't find the energy or the motivation to say any of that, so instead, he said:

'Alright, have it your way.'

He walked away from her and he had his hand on the handle when he heard her sobbing loudly. Steeling himself against what he believed was yet another display of crocodile tears, he opened the door and stepped out of the room. Sadly, that prevented him from noticing that, for once in her life, Kaori's tears were real.

Meanwhile Seisuke walked to the nearby nurses' station where he found Doctor Sumiyoshi and, giving him the number for the Kurosawa residence, he asked the doctor to check with Kaori to see if the girl wanted to have her parents around. If Doctor Sumiyoshi found the request to be odd, he didn't voice any concerns.

'Alright,' the doctor said instead, 'you should go to bed now,' he added, 'you look tired.'

'I am,' Seisuke confessed, 'can you please also tell my parents that I've gone home?'

'Of course,' Doctor Sumiyoshi replied.

With this, Seisuke went back to the car park where he climbed in his RZ-1 and then he drove it back home as fast as he could. Leaving the car next to his older brother's, Seisuke hurried into the house feeling lucky that none of his relatives seemed to be awake. Not surprising, given that it was nearly three o'clock in the morning.

Once in his room, he just kicked the slippers off his feet and, dropping himself onto the bed facing the ceiling, he closed his eyes and tried for several hours to fall asleep, failing so miserably that several hours later he just gave up and decided to go and take a shower instead hoping that it would help him feel better.

He had just finished getting dressed with a fresh change of clothes when he heard a knock on his door:

'Come in,' Seisuke answered.

'Hey,' Kyosuke said stepping into the room, 'do you have a minute?'

'If it's a minute, yes,' Seisuke said. He looked like he was on his way out.

'Are you going to see Kaori?' Kyosuke asked.

'I take you heard then,' Seisuke said.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied, 'Dad told me about it this morning, I tried calling you last night, several times.'

'I know you did,' Seisuke said, 'I just…'

'It's okay,' Kyosuke interrupted, 'how is she doing?' he asked him instead.

'Well,' Seisuke said, 'I'm going to see if she's calmed down now.'

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked him.

'It's too long to explain,' Seisuke said, 'what is it that you want?'

'Can I?' Kyosuke asked pointing at the messy looking double bed.

'I thought you said it would be a minute,' Seisuke reminded him.

'I might have exaggerated,' Kyosuke said.

'Alright,' Seisuke said trying to be patient, 'please, be my guest.'

'Thanks,' Kyosuke replied sitting on a corner of the bed while Seisuke sat down on his favourite black leather chair, 'I wanted to talk to you about what's been happening between you and Kaori, because in recent…'

'Aniki...'

'Look,' Kyosuke interrupted him, 'you know I'm not one to pry but...'

'I love her,' Seisuke said as firmly as he could.

'I know you do,' Kyosuke replied, 'but that's not what I wanted to...'

'But I was going to break up with her,' Seisuke finally announced.

'What?' Kyosuke gasped.

'Yesterday,' Seisuke explained, 'before we went off to Akito's party, we had the umpteenth photocopied argument: she was pissed because I forgot to tell her about the gathering in Mt Usui when she had organised this whole party with her classmates. She gave me quite the earful when I told her I was going to Mt Usui first and then I'd show up at her party, I did my best to ignore her and that pissed her off even more.'

'I see...'

'I'm just tired of having the same argument over and over again,' Seisuke continued, 'but, you know, after last night, seeing her on the floor, unconscious...I thought I was going to die too and I realised that there was no way I could break up with her again. What can I do, Aniki? I just love her too much.'

'I understand that,' Kyosuke said, 'but I also understand that you two seem to be playing the same game using very different rules over and over again and I'm not sure that's going to work in the long term future.'

'What do you mean? Seisuke asked.

'Are you happy with her?' Kyosuke simply asked and, with concern, he noticed that his brother took a little longer than he should have to give him a reply.

'Kind of,' Seisuke said.

'Seisuke...'

'Aniki,' he interrupted, 'I know Kaori is far from perfect, not everyone can be as lucky as you with Kizuna...'

'Wait a minute,' Kyosuke stopped him, 'Kizuna's not perfect.'

'Yeah, right,' Seisuke said with a large dose of sarcasm.

'She's not,' Kyosuke insisted, 'she's too stubborn, too strong-willed for her own good and she's surprisingly disorganised, also, very often I need to remind her that whether she likes it or not, she is a woman.'

'Aniki!' Seisuke protested, 'I didn't need to know that!'

'Not in that sense,' Kyosuke hurried to add then, as an afterthought, he added, 'now that you mention it...'

'ANIKI!' Seisuke exclaimed looking disgusted, 'way too much information!'

'Sorry,' Kyosuke said with a small smile, 'at any rate, Kizuna is far from perfect and just so you know I live in fear that one day she's just going to tell me "Kyosuke, it's been fun but, I'm now off to the US, bye bye!" and then I won't know what to do to keep her here. But somehow I'm just very happy when I'm with her.'

'Which is more than I can say about Kaori, right?' Seisuke asked.

'Don't put words that aren't mine in my mouth,' Kyosuke said, 'what I'm saying is that you should seriously think about what's wrong in your relationship with Kaori and then see if there's anything you can do to fix it.'

'I know what's wrong in my relationship with Kaori,' Seisuke countered, 'which is why I've decided that I'm going to give her exactly what she wants and hope that it will finally make her happy.'

'What are you saying?' Kyosuke asked, 'are you going to quit racing?'

'On the contrary,' Seisuke replied, 'back when we went to Ibaraki I realised how far behind I've fallen in regards to the rest of the team and the reason is that Kaori's been so much on my case about being formally introduced to Mum and Dad and I've been trying so hard to keep her distracted from that, that I haven't had as much time to train as you guys do. So, what I'm going to do is give in the only thing I can give in really.'

'Mum and Dad met Kaori last night,' Kyosuke pointed out.

'I know,' Seisuke said looking even more miserable, 'Kaori has already given me hell for the way they had to meet her. This is why I've got to make it up to her.'

'Seisuke,' Kyosuke said, 'you don't need to make it up to her.'

'I do,' Seisuke insisted, 'it's my fault if she ended up in the hospital.'

'How is that your fault?' Kyosuke asked, 'you weren't even there!'

'Precisely,' Seisuke said sounding just like Kaori did, 'if I had been there, none of this would have happened.'

'No,' Kyosuke countered, 'if she hadn't drank that stuff, nothing would have happened to her.'

'She wouldn't have drank that stuff if I had been there,' Seisuke said.

Kyosuke let out a frustrated sigh and, seeing that this conversation was going nowhere, he took a few minutes to think about it then, something occurred to him which made him temporarily give up the fight.

'Alright,' he said, 'I just hope you know what you're doing.'

'Me too, Aniki, me too,' Seisuke replied not looking entirely confident.

With that, his younger brother got up and then Kyosuke followed him out of his room. On their way down the stairs, they met Kizuna who had just come into the house and Kyosuke had proof of how badly affected Seisuke was by the whole thing when he didn't even try to make fun of Kizuna regarding the very embarrassing bit of information about her that he had just carelessly disclosed.

'Is Seisuke okay?' Kizuna asked him a few moments later while they drank some coffee and prepared themselves to watch a movie.

'Not really,' Kyosuke replied, 'but I'm not too worried.'

'Why not?' Kizuna asked frowning a little.

'Because,' Kyosuke explained, 'with a bit of luck Mum and Dad will soon be helping in our cause.'

'What do you mean?'

'I'm not sure yet,' Kyosuke replied, 'it's just a hunch I have.'

'Oh,' Kizuna gasped while she smiled at him, 'in that case, I think we can all rest easy.'

Shortly after, Seisuke parked his car near the Arakawa Hospital's main entrance and, walking purposefully, he paused by the admissions desk just long enough to say who he was and who he was coming to see. Naturally, the nurse at the station didn't even try to stop him and trying not to lose momentum, Seisuke made it to the door to Kaori's room just in time to see her mother walking out of the room looking like she'd just seen a ghost. The woman almost failed to see him at all.

'Oh,' she gasped, 'Seisuke-san, it's you.'

'Good morning, Kurosawa-san,' he said bowing respectfully.

'I think thanks are in order,' Kaori's mother said, 'if you hadn't been there, my daughter would have died.'

'Kurosawa-san…'

'To think that they could have killed someone else too,' the woman said and that confused Seisuke a little, 'you know,' she elaborated, 'you would have thought that the catering company would test their food before serving it to people. It was a good thing no one else had those prawn canapés, otherwise…'

'The what?' a startled Seisuke asked.

'I wanted to sue them,' Kurosawa-san said, 'but Kaori begged me not to. The poor thing doesn't want to make a scene and I understand her, she does have two more years before she finishes her course and it would not be good to sue a company that's been supplying the university with their food for years.'

Seisuke failed to find words.

'Anyway,' Kaori's mother continued, 'Kaori's awake now and she seems to be doing much better after a good night's sleep. I'm sure she'll be happy to see you, after what you did for her, she literally owes you her life!'

'Yeah,' Seisuke said not really sure of what he was agreeing to.

At any rate, the lady excused herself saying she was going to call her husband and, ushered by her, he found himself standing in Kaori's room, with the girl looking like an entirely different person: a happy one.

'Good morning,' she said smiling at him.

'Hey,' he replied, 'why did you lie to your mother?'

Her smile faltered for a bit but, recovering fast, she said:

'I don't want her to worry over nothing, you know what she's like, she'll just blow everything out of proportion.'

'Kaori, you shouldn't...'

'I'm sorry about last night,' she interrupted him, 'I was very upset and I didn't know what I was saying.'

'Kaori, you shouldn't have lied to your mother.'

'Let's forget about that,' she said, 'and come here, you're standing too far away!'

'But Kaori...' he started while he got closer to the bed.

'You don't want us to argue again, do you?' she asked pouting a little.

'I just...'

'I want us to have a fresh start,' she said, 'put this whole thing behind us and start again, can you do that?'

Seisuke sighed heavily and then, even if it was a little reluctantly, he nodded once.

'Great,' Kaori said, 'now, is there anything you want to tell me?'

'Yes,' he replied, 'there is.'

'What is it?' she asked conversationally.

'I've been doing some thinking,' he started.

'Seisuke...' she stopped him with a worried frown.

'Please let me finish,' he said, 'I should have introduced you to my parents ages ago so, I'm thinking that the four of us could meet up for dinner one of these days.'

'I have a better idea,' Kaori announced, her smile widening by the second.

'You do?' Seisuke asked.

'Yes,' she replied, 'listen, after last night, your parents will probably have a terrible impression of me so, what I'd suggest is to give them some time to maybe forget about this unfortunate incident. This way, when we'll formally meet, they'll be able to have a clean slate on which they can form their opinion about me.'

'What are you suggesting?' Seisuke asked.

'You did mention that your brother's girlfriend was spending Christmas in our country this year,' Kaori said.

'Yes,' Seisuke confirmed.

'That's great then,' she said, 'Christmas in the western world is a time for families to get together so, I think it'll be the perfect occasion for me to be formally introduced to yours. Don't you think it's a fantastic idea?'

Seisuke blinked a couple of times then, remembering about his resolution to make her happy, he said:

'Alright, I'll let my parents know.'

'Brilliant,' Kaori said, 'now why aren't you a darling and sit down here with me for a bit?'

Seisuke complied but, not so deep down, he had the impression that he'd just made a very grave mistake.

_To be continued…_


	56. Chapter Fifty Five

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty Five_

Early on Christmas morning, Eiji was driving his NSX RR to Takasaki's railway station. There, he would meet with Yayoi for what officially was their first proper date. He still remembered the shocked looks he got from Masato and Izawa when, a couple of weeks before, he had announced that he was going to ask Yayoi out.

He couldn't say it was unexpected.

Since that first evening in November when he had taken her to the gathering in Mt Usui, he had found that the girl was a lot of fun. She was also surprisingly strong and had never made him feel the urge to look after her the same way he felt with Mika. No, Yayoi knew well how to take care of herself and he found that oddly refreshing. That said, she had never tried to cover up the obvious interest she had for him.

'You're really good looking, you know that?' she had told him that very same night.

Smiling, Eiji turned into the road which led to the station and, just there, standing outside, he saw her.

'Hey,' he said getting out of the car so he could get her door open, 'I hope I didn't make you wait too long.'

'A bit,' she replied honestly while she climbed into the car, 'but don't worry, you're worth the trouble.'

Feeling a little lighter on his feet, he closed the door careful not to slam it onto Yayoi and practically skipped to the other side of the car. He noticed how a couple of passing-by people looked at him with amused expressions on their faces but, just now, he couldn't have cared any less. He felt incredibly happy today.

'So,' Yayoi asked him once they were back on the road, 'where are you taking me?'

'It's a surprise,' he replied.

'Fair enough,' Yayoi said then, she added, 'just so you know, I don't really care where we're going. I'm just happy you asked me to go out with you on Christmas. Poor Ryoko told me she and Akito won't have a date.'

'They won't?' Eiji asked her.

'Nope,' Yayoi replied, 'her family's having some sort of get-together so they can't go out by themselves.'

'That's a pity,' Eiji said.

'Yep,' Yayoi agreed then, with a studied casual tone, she added, 'you know, it's my first Christmas date.'

'Are you trying to tell me you haven't had a boyfriend before?' Eiji asked sounding a tad incredulous.

'Oh, I have,' Yayoi replied, 'but never around the important dates like Christmas or Valentine's.'

'Ah,' Eiji said, 'so, you've gone out with guys.'

Yayoi laughed a little and said:

'Just one, we broke up a couple of months before I met you.'

'Lucky me,' Eiji said only half-joking.

'No,' Yayoi said, 'lucky me, he wasn't a very good boyfriend.'

Eiji didn't know what to say to that so, instead, he asked:

'You and Ryoko-chan have been friends for a really long time, haven't you?'

'Since elementary school,' Yayoi replied, 'though I didn't really like her when I met her. I was a bit of a tomboy in the first year, I would fight with the boys and I refused to wear girly stuff. Ryoko, on the contrary, looked as cute as a porcelain doll and, to be honest, she kind of freaked me out.'

'Did she?' Eiji said.

'Yes,' Yayoi replied, 'she was so perfect in every way that I found her a bit annoying. Then, one day, I just had a fight with some kid from our class, I was at the playground of our school and it was raining. She came out with an umbrella and a wet pink hankie and while she held the umbrella over me, she helped me clean the scraps I had on my knees. She told me then that she thought I was very brave and that she admired me. I was so surprised by this that, somehow, we started talking and we ended up getting very wet.'

'You probably caught a cold,' Eiji commented.

'No,' Yayoi replied, 'I didn't, but she did. I felt really bad about it and when she came back, I asked her if she wanted to be my friend. She said she'd love to and from then on, we became inseparable. She tried to teach me how to be a little more girlie while I protected her against the many boys who kept bothering her.'

'I suspect they were many,' Eiji said.

'You have no idea,' Yayoi replied with a short laugh, 'seriously, she had so many admirers that it wasn't even funny. The worst bit is that it was all wasted on her, you know, she's had this massive crush on Akito-kun ever since they met when they were pre-schoolers and, since then, she's never even looked at any other guy. For years I found it rather annoying but now, I think I can understand how she feels about Akito-kun.'

'Why just now?' Eiji asked.

Yayoi became suddenly shy and with a very small voice, she said:

'Because of you.'

Eiji's smile widened and, nodding once, he said:

'I'm very happy to hear that.'

'Thanks,' a slightly overwhelmed Yayoi replied, 'I know I'm nowhere near as cute as…'

'Don't say that,' Eiji interrupted her, 'you're very cute.'

'No, I'm not,' Yayoi said.

'Yes, you are,' Eiji countered, 'you might not be cute in the conventional sense of the word but you've got really pretty eyes and a cute little nose and the shape of your face is unique in a good way and, even if it's not too long, your hair is nice and shiny and it curls in a very attractive way.'

Yayoi lost her ability to speak for a second.

'You really think all that?' she managed to ask.

'Of course I do,' Eiji said sounding very honest, 'I wouldn't be here with you if I thought you were ugly.'

'That's fair enough,' Yayoi replied smiling happily.

The girl was so enthralled by what Eiji had just told her that she even missed when they went into the underground car park of the Takasaki City Cultural Centre. She only noticed when the car came to a stop.

'My lady,' Eiji said in his usual pompous manner, 'we've arrived at our destination.'

Feeling a bit confused, she waited until Eiji got out of his car so that he could open the door for her and, climbing out of the Honda, she glanced around herself while she tried to figure out where they were.

'This way,' Eiji told her offering her his arm.

Taking it, the two of them made it out of the car park and when they got into the elevator, she saw him pressing the button which would take them to one of her favourite places: the city's famous planetarium.

'Oh wow,' she gasped, 'are you really going to take me to the Planetarium Suehiro?'

'Yep,' Eiji replied, 'I heard you talking about that with Ryoko-chan and she told me you love going there.'

'I do,' Yayoi confirmed, 'it makes me feel…'

'…relaxed,' Eiji finished for her, 'that's what Ryoko-chan told me.'

'She knows me too well,' Yayoi said.

'Luckily for me,' Eiji added, 'she's happy to share her intel with me.'

'I think I should have a chat with her,' Yayoi said feigning a concern she didn't feel.

'Don't worry,' Eiji said nonetheless, 'she just goes as far as telling me what you like, nothing else.'

'Ah, in that case…'

'Does this mean that you've got secrets?' Eiji teased her.

'Don't we all?' Yayoi replied with an enigmatic smile.

'True enough,' Eiji said, 'this means I'll have fun trying to unravel those mysteries of yours.'

'Two can play that game, you know?' she pointed out.

'I can only hope so,' Eiji replied.

Laughing together, the two of them stepped out of the elevator too busy to realised that, out of the elevator next to theirs came a group of five guys, all looking rather intended on following them wherever they went.

Well, not all of them.

'Can we go home now?' Kei whispered furiously.

'Nope,' Izawa replied, 'we still don't know where they're going.'

'There's only one thing in here,' Kei protested, 'and that's the freaking Planetarium.'

'Let's go in,' Yuta said and, of course, Shige agreed with him.

'Why?' Kei asked sounding desperate, 'and why am I even here?'

'Stop complaining,' Masato said, 'and Yuta's right, we should follow them inside, just in case.'

'Just in case what?' Kei tried again, 'what do you think might go wrong in there?'

'I don't know yet,' Masato replied, 'but we need to keep an eye on Eiji, just to be sure he's fine.'

'He IS fine,' Kei insisted, 'and we should just go…'

He stopped talking seeing that his four companions had already made their way to the planetarium's ticket office and after silently swearing, he forced himself to follow them too. If only so that he could try and talk some sense into them before things got really out of hand, Eiji would discover them and then he'd get mad.

Inside the planetarium, they found a group of empty seats in the dark room keeping a safe enough distance from the couple then, a few minutes later, the astronomer in charge of the session stepped onto the platform and started explaining to them a few more or less interesting facts about several constellations.

Needless to say, while Masato and Izawa kept their eyes on Eiji and Yayoi, Yuta and Shige were so taken by the scientist's presentation that they forgot all about their so-called stealthy mission to survey Eiji and Yayoi's first date. Meanwhile, Kei's brain was also busy trying to figure out a way to stop all that nonsense.

'They're leaving,' Masato whispered at the end of the session.

'We're staying,' Yuta and Shige replied.

'What?' Izawa asked, 'you can't, we…'

'Didn't you hear?' Shige asked him.

'They're going to talk about the SETI program next,' Yuta explained.

'The what?' Izawa asked.

'Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence,' Shige supplied.

'We can't miss that,' Yuta added.

'Guys,' Kei announced sounding almost happy, 'they're already gone.'

'Crap,' Masato replied.

He and Izawa rushed towards the way out followed by an extremely reluctant Kei and soon, they found themselves hiding behind a couple of large plants, while Eiji bought a take-out cappuccino, for Yayoi, and an orange juice for himself. The couple then started walking away from the cafeteria to go back to the elevator.

'Where are they going now?' Izawa asked Masato.

'With a bit of luck,' Kei replied instead, 'they'll just go home.'

'I don't think so,' Masato countered, 'let's hurry or we'll lose them again.'

'And that would be such a pity,' Kei muttered sarcastically.

'You could just go home,' Izawa suggested while they called the other elevator.

'No way,' Kei said, 'someone's got to keep an eye on you two.'

Soon enough all three were in their cars heading out of the car park hoping that they would see Eiji's black NSX RR. Fortunately, the guy didn't look to be in a rush and they found the Honda just outside, waiting for the traffic light to turn green. Keeping what they thought was a reasonable distance, they followed Eiji along the streets of Takasaki and it soon became clear that they were about to leave the city.

'Where is he going?' Izawa asked Masato through the frequency which connected all three cars.

'I think I have an idea,' Masato replied and, before he could name it, Kei said:

'He's taking her to Mt Akagi's Pass.'

'Why?' Izawa then asked.

'For a drive on the snow,' both Kei and Masato replied at the same time then, Kei alone added, 'what else?'

The NSX RR led them all the way to the base of the Golden Arrows home course and just as the three cars started the climb uphill, they saw the Honda pulled to the side of the road and Eiji and Yayoi standing outside of the car very obviously waiting for them with the air of a couple of parents having found their very naughty kids with their hands stuck in the cookie jar.

'Great,' Kei grunted.

All three cars stopped about a metre away from the Honda and, knowing that postponing the inevitable was useless, Masato, Izawa and even Kei himself climbed out of them to see Eiji and Yayoi both looking more amused than angry. Before any of the three could open their mouths to speak, Eiji laughed softly and said:

'For how long were you going to follow us?'

'Er…' Masato hesitated.

'When did you notice?' Izawa asked him.

'At the Planetarium,' Yayoi replied instead.

'You seriously didn't think I would fail to see all FIVE of you, did you?' Eiji asked them.

'Well…' Izawa started.

'Alright,' Kei interrupted him, 'now we've been found out, can we please go home?'

'And Kei,' Eiji said, 'honestly, I didn't think you'd go along with something like this.'

'I'm not here voluntarily,' Kei pointed out, 'they made me do it.'

'Did not,' Masato and Izawa replied at the same time.

'Alright,' Eiji laughed while Yayoi made an effort not to, 'with your permission, we were in the middle of our date so, we'll just go. You three, be a good sport and head home while I spend the day with my girlfriend.'

Hearing that made Yayoi positively beam with joy and, a few moments later, she and Eiji took off in the Honda, leaving Masato, Izawa and Kei behind looking fairly miserable seeing that they had failed their mission.

'What should we do now?' Izawa asked Masato.

'I don't know,' Masato replied, 'I mean, it's Christmas, it's a bit depressing that we're spending it together.'

'WE aren't spending it together,' Kei said, 'you two are, because I'm going home, I've had enough of this.'

Without waiting for their reply, he got back into his white Mitsubishi and soon he too was off.

'So, it's just you and me,' Izawa said.

'Karaoke?' Masato suggested.

'Sounds great,' Izawa replied.

While all of this happened, Seisuke was driving his RZ-1 all the way from Kaori's home to his own. Today was the day in which he would formally introduce his girlfriend to his parents and, even though he had felt like he was being forced to do it, he also knew that once he did this, he would probably feel better about it.

'Are you nervous?' he asked Kaori.

'No,' she replied sounding honest, 'it's going to be okay, they'll love me.'

Seisuke chose not to say anything to that, instead, he said:

'I should prepare you mentally for the house, Mum's gone a bit overboard with the decorations.'

'Really?' Kaori asked.

'Yeah,' Seisuke replied, 'apparently, since Kizuna's half-American, Mum insisted we had to recreate the perfect American Christmas so that Kizuna would feel less homesick. The result is that now the whole house is covered with all sorts of Christmas decorations, it's so weird that even the neighbours took pictures of it.'

'Oh,' was all that Kaori said.

'But don't worry,' Seisuke continued, 'even though we got the catering to serve a full American meal, with turkey and the likes, we also got some traditional Japanese food because Aniki isn't into western stuff.'

'He sure had me fooled,' Kaori commented with sarcastic nonchalance.

'What do you mean?' Seisuke still asked.

'Well,' she said, 'his girlfriend isn't exactly a Nadeshiko Yamato kind of girl, is she?'

'Kaori…'

'She's not,' the girl insisted.

'Alright,' Seisuke admitted, 'she's not, but Aniki loves her so, please be careful with what you say about her.'

'I will,' Kaori promised, 'I'm going to be so diplomatic you could send me to work for the United Nations.'

'Thank you,' Seisuke said.

Ten minutes later, he parked his RZ-1 next in its usual spot and, shortly after, the two of them were out of the car with Kaori looking fairly disgusted by the huge amount of Christmas decorations which, as Seisuke had warned her, were everywhere. In the garage alone, they had quite a few strings of little lights running along the walls with intertwined multicoloured tinsel and beautiful jewel balls attached every half a metre.

'Oh my gosh,' she gasped.

'You haven't seen anything yet,' Seisuke laughed.

When they finally entered the house using the door at the garage, Kaori's senses were assaulted by a myriad of colours, scents and sounds for, in fact, Akiko had an All-American Christmas Carols CD playing in the living room's sound system and right now, they were listening to a modernised version of "Holy Night".

Taking their shoes off, Seisuke gave Kaori a pair of brand new slippers while he donned his own and after hanging their coats, Kaori took the posh paper bag she was carrying as well as her own Gucci handbag and followed her boyfriend along the corridor towards the living room. Sitting on one of the two big sofas, they saw Akito and Ryoko working on what seemed a string made out of popcorn while Kizuna tried to explain to them the proper way to do it. Kyosuke just observed the scene with an amused expression on his face.

'Hey,' Seisuke said to get their attention.

'Oh,' Ryoko gasped getting up from the couch, dropping the few popcorns she had on her lap, 'you're here!'

'Obviously,' Seisuke replied with a sarcastic but happy looking smile.

'I'll go and get everyone,' Kyosuke offered getting up from his seat.

'Thanks,' Seisuke replied exchanging a quick glance with him.

'Merry Christmas,' an oblivious Kaori said in English.

'Merry Christmas,' Kizuna replied offering her a genuine smile.

'So,' Kaori said conversationally, 'what's that supposed to be?'

'It's a string of popcorn,' was Ryoko's answer.

'I can see that, silly,' Kaori said with a little giggle, 'what is it for?'

'Not much,' Kizuna replied, 'it's just a tradition we have in the US, I don't even know why we do it.'

'Aren't we going to eat it?' Akito asked looking a little confused.

'I hope not!' Ryoko exclaimed looking a little disgusted.

'That has to be very unhygienic,' Seisuke pointed out.

'It is,' Kizuna agreed, 'we'll just hang it somewhere, once it's done.'

Kaori was going to speak again but, just then, Kyosuke came back with the four adults of the house.

'Mum, Dad,' Seisuke hurried to say while taking Kaori's hand in his, 'I know you already know who she is but I wanted to introduce you properly. She's my girlfriend Kurosawa Kaori, Kaori, these are my parents Akiko and Ryosuke and these two people here are my father's younger brother Keisuke and his wife Kyoko.'

'It's very nice to finally meet you,' Kaori said with an elegant bow.

'It's nice to see you again too,' Akiko replied then, she glanced at her husband who seemed unable to speak.

'Er…' Ryosuke hesitated in a very out of character way, 'welcome to our home,' he finally said.

'Thank you,' Kaori replied offering him a smile.

There was a short but very awkward silence which was broken by Seisuke:

'Kaori, didn't you bring something with you?'

'Ah, yes,' Kaori replied with another little giggle, 'here,' she said giving the posh bag to Akiko, 'they're sweets from Hokkaido, your favourites according to your son and,' she added looking at Kyoko, 'I also got some pastries made with Hermitage Green Tea from Shizuoka. Seisuke tells me that you rather like them.'

'I do,' Kyoko confirmed.

'Thank you very much,' Akiko said.

'It's the least I can do,' Kaori replied.

'Alright,' Keisuke said, 'we're nearly ready at the dinning room so, why don't we move there?'

'Excellent idea,' Ryosuke agreed.

Abandoning their attempt at popcorn string making, Akito and Ryoko followed the two sets of Takahashi brothers with their respective partners all the way to the big dinning room which had obviously been set up to look like the prefect American Christmas dinner table with a magnificently big roast turkey serving as its centrepiece.

'I hope you're hungry,' Akiko said while she started serving the food.

A while later and as everyone was busy enjoying their first course, Kaori glanced at Kizuna and asked her:

'Do you have a large family?'

'Not really,' Kizuna replied, 'at home is just me and my mother but my uncle lives next door.'

'What about your father?' Kaori asked making Kyosuke stop his fork half way to his mouth.

'He died when I was little,' Kizuna replied calmly.

'Oh,' Kaori said looking sad, 'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'It was a long time ago,' Kizuna said.

'How did it happen?' Kaori asked and just as Kyosuke was going to intervene, Kizuna hurried to answer:

'He was a professional racer and died in a car crash during a race.'

Kaori looked genuinely sorry to hear that but that didn't stop her from turning to Akito to ask him:

'You're also a professional racer, right?'

'Er…' he hesitated, 'yes, I guess…'

'Seisuke told me you were racing in something called F3,' Kaori commented ignorant of her own insensitivity.

'Er…' Akito started, 'I…'

'He's going to be testing for a GP2 team,' Seisuke explained to his girlfriend, 'I think I mentioned this to you.'

'GP2?' Kaori asked, 'is that different from F3?'

'It is,' Seisuke confirmed happy about his girlfriend sudden interest in racing, 'they're different categories.'

'The cars are not radically different,' Akito finally explained, 'but the engines in GP2 are more powerful.'

'Faster?' Kaori asked.

'Of course,' Akito replied.

'How fast can they go?' Kaori asked him.

'Well,' Akito replied starting to feel slightly uncomfortable about being at the centre of the attention, 'this year's Dallara maxed at about three hundred and twenty five kilometres per hour, I'm not sure about next year's version yet.'

'That much?' Kaori asked widening her eyes, 'that sounds so dangerous!'

'It can be,' Seisuke confirmed.

'Aren't you scared?' Kaori asked Akito.

'Not really,' he replied, 'if I were scared I'd be a danger to myself and the other drivers.'

'Well said,' Keisuke intervened giving an approving nod at his future son in law.

'I'd be so scared if I were you,' Kaori commented this time looking at Ryoko who then looked a tad uneasy.

'She trusts him,' Seisuke said, 'don't you, baby cousin?'

'Of course,' Ryoko managed to reply making Akito breath easier at the same time.

Fortunately for everyone, Kyoko chose that moment to announce that they should start serving the second course and as on cue, Akiko moved the topic of conversation to a much safer terrain: the New Year's party.

A few very long hours later, Kyosuke was driving Kizuna back to her place glad to have an excuse to get out of the house since, to his horror, Kaori had just been invited by his mother Akiko to stay over for dinner too.

'You really don't like her very much, do you?' Kizuna asked him while they were on their way.

'That's putting it mildly,' Kyosuke said.

'Your parents seemed to be okay with her,' Kizuna commented.

'Not really,' Kyosuke replied, 'my mother's only putting up with her because she's Seisuke's girlfriend and she doesn't want Seisuke to think that they don't approve but, did you see my father? He hardly spoke to her.'

'That's true,' Kizuna said frowning a bit, 'why did you think he didn't?'

'No idea,' Kyosuke replied, 'but I noticed he kept giving her subverted looks when he thought no one was paying attention. It's the first time I've seen my father looking so freaked out about something, it's weird.'

'Seisuke looked happy enough,' Kizuna commented, 'especially when Kaori started asking all of those questions about racing. Who knows? Maybe now she's got one of the things she wanted, she's going to settle for that and will get off Seisuke's case about his street racing.'

'You don't seriously think that, do you?' Kyosuke asked her.

'What do you think?' Kizuna asked him.

'I think,' Kyosuke replied, 'that Kaori's just gathering information in preparation for her next mission.'

'What do you mean?' Kizuna asked.

'I'll only tell you this,' Kyosuke said, 'if coming spring I see Kaori coming to the gatherings, then I'll know for sure that her next target is to get Seisuke to quit racing. That's precisely the reason why I don't like her.'

'Well, she is a little pushy,' Kizuna admitted.

'No,' Kyosuke said, 'Ryoko is a little pushy. What Kaori is trying to do is to model Seisuke to her own liking.'

'But…'

'I'm not too worried though,' he interrupted her.

'Why not?' Kizuna asked.

'Easy,' Kyosuke explained, 'if my predictions are correct, now that she thinks she's getting what she wants, she's probably feeling safe enough and, mark my words, sooner or later, she'll make a massive mistake.'

'Like what?'

'I don't know yet,' Kyosuke said, 'but I can only hope it's something big enough for Seisuke to realise that he's better off without her but that won't hurt him too badly, because if she does hurt him, God help her.'

'Now you're getting scary,' Kizuna commented sounding very serious.

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke said, 'Seisuke is my only brother, if that bitch hurts him more than she's already done...'

'Okay, okay,' Kizuna stopped him, 'I get it loud and clear,' Kyosuke remained silent and that made her add, 'you know, it's a good thing you're usually so calm because I'd really hate to see you getting truly angry.'

'Don't worry,' Kyosuke reassured her, 'I doubt you'll ever need to.'

Kizuna nodded once while thinking that she certainly hoped so.

_To be continued…_


	57. Chapter Fifty Six

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty Six_

On a fine evening of April 2023, while the rest of the nation celebrated the end of the academic year taking nearly two weeks of holidays, the members Golden Arrows were at their home course working harder than ever to keep themselves trained because, just as their leader kept telling them, getting to the top of the street racing scene had been a lot easier than it would be staying there since they never knew when another team would challenge them out of that place.

'You must be bored,' Kaori told Yayoi while, not far from there, they saw Eiji listening to something Kyosuke was telling him.

'Not really,' Yayoi replied, she took a sip from her bottle of water and said, 'just looking at Eiji-san now, having so much fun with his friends, how could I possibly be bored?'

'You still call him Eiji-san?' Ryoko said joining them at the guardrail they were using as seat.

'Of course,' Yayoi replied blushing a little, 'you call him that too.'

'Yes,' Ryoko admitted, 'but I'm not his girlfriend, you are.'

'True,' Yayoi said, 'but, to be honest, I'm not sure he would like it if I started being so familiar with him.'

'What are you talking about?' Ryoko asked with a soft laugh, 'Kaori, you tell her…'

'You should just call him Eiji,' Kaori confirmed, 'you've been together for what? Four or five months?'

'Just three and a bit,' Yayoi corrected, 'and I'm just a bit embarrassed…I don't know if…'

'Let's find out,' Ryoko interrupted and, just then, she got up and raised her voice a little, 'Eiji-san!'

Predictably, Eiji and Kyosuke interrupted their chat and the two men looked at the girls.

'Could you please come here a second?' Ryoko asked him before Yayoi could do anything to prevent it.

'Sure,' Eiji said. He excused himself with the team leader and walked towards them, 'what's up?'

'I just wanted to ask you something,' Ryoko replied with a smile while Yayoi tried to go into mimetic mode and Kaori observed the scene glad to have something entertaining her.

'Fire away,' Eiji said.

'In a scale from one to ten,' Ryoko said, 'how annoying would you find it if Yayoi here started calling your name without the honorific?'

'Would you want to do that?' Eiji asked Yayoi with a soft smile improving his already handsome features.

'Er…'

'Eiji-san,' Ryoko intervened, 'you wouldn't mind at all, would you?'

'Of course not,' Eiji replied shaking his head once, 'just as long as I'm allowed to call her Yayoi, without the –chan.'

'You'd do that?' Yayoi asked blinking hard.

'If you let me,' Eiji replied, 'I'd love to.'

'That's settled then,' Ryoko said smiling at the couple, 'come on Yayoi, give it a go.'

'What?' Yayoi asked her looking confused.

'Call him,' Kaori said.

'Oh…' Yayoi hesitated then, taking a deep breath, she said, 'Eiji.'

'Yes, Yayoi?' Eiji played along.

'See? It sounds normal, doesn't it?' Ryoko asked.

'It does,' Yayoi admitted.

'Eiji-san,' Ryoko then said, 'thank you for your time. You should go now, don't keep that cousin of mine waiting.'

Nodding once, he offered the three girls a small reverence before he made his way back to the Golden Arrows team leader, stopping once to look back at Yayoi, winking an eye at her before he went on. Yayoi looked so happy that for an instant, she forgot about being mad at Ryoko then, she remembered and glaring at her a little, she said:

'You seriously need a hobby.'

'I have several, thank you very much,' Ryoko countered, 'and should I remind you who wanted me here?'

'No, thanks,' Yayoi replied.

'That's right,' Ryoko said, 'you begged me to come out here so you wouldn't be all alone.'

'Well,' Yayoi countered, 'I didn't know Kaori-san would be here, did I?'

'No, you didn't,' Ryoko said then, talking to Kaori, she asked, 'it surprised me too, why the change of heart?'

'No reason,' Kaori replied, 'I had some time off and I thought that this way I'd get to see more of Seisuke.'

'You don't like street racing?' Yayoi asked her.

'It's not that I don't like it,' Kaori lied, 'it's just that, I don't really get why they're so passionate about it.'

'Don't you have something you like doing a lot?' Yayoi asked.

'What?' Kaori asked, 'like a hobby or something?'

'Yes,' Yayoi replied.

'I'm in the flower arrangement club and I'm attending a Tea Ceremony course,' Kaori explained.

'Right,' Yayoi said frowning a little, 'but they aren't really hobbies, are they?'

'I also like shopping and chatting to my girlfriends,' Kaori said a tad on the defensive sides.

'Still not exactly hobby material,' Yayoi pointed out.

'Shopping can be a hobby,' Ryoko countered.

'Ryoko,' Yayoi said shaking her head, 'if it were up to you, shopping would be an Olympic discipline.'

'Well…'

'Anyway,' Yayoi stopped her best friend and glancing back at Kaori, 'if you had a real hobby, something special you liked doing, you'd probably understand the way Seisuke-san and his friends feel about racing.'

'I don't know,' Kaori said, 'I…'

Right at that moment, Eiji returned to them and, smiling at Yayoi, he said:

'My lady, can I persuade you to join me in my humble carriage?'

'Of course you can,' Yayoi said jumping down from the guardrail to follow him.

An hour later and one by one the Golden Arrows finished their runs. The only ones missing were the three Subaru belonging to Shuji, Tatsuya and Shigeru but since they could all hear the screeching of their tyres, they knew that soon they would enjoy the show. Just then, they saw them appearing from around the last corner of the pass executing a three-car parallel drift then, not happy with that feat, they covered the rest of the distance engaging into a complicated choreography which showed off their highly synchronised skills.

They were simply amazing.

Shortly after and with everyone gathered there, Kyosuke was ready to dismiss them when Masato spoke.

'Guys,' he said, 'before we go, there's a huge favour Izawa and I need to ask of you.'

'What is it?' Kyosuke said.

'Do you guys remember Morioka Jun?' Masato asked.

'Sure,' Seisuke replied, 'from the Myogi Devils, right?'

'That's the one,' Masato said.

'The thing is,' Izawa continued, 'we've been keeping in touch and the poor guy seems to be in trouble.'

'What sort of trouble?' Junya asked.

'Well,' Masato said, 'you guys know that his family own this big onsen in Isobe, don't you?'

'Yes, we do,' Kyosuke confirmed.

'The thing is,' Izawa said, 'they had this group of people booked in for this weekend and they've now cancelled the reservation. Jun-kun said that his father was really upset about it and has asked him to see if any of his friends would like to take over the booking. He asked us to see if we could do him that favour.'

'I take we would need to pay for our stay there?' Kei asked.

'Unfortunately, yes,' Masato replied, 'but his father told him that we'd get a twenty five percent discount.'

'Why isn't he asking his team mates?' Junya asked.

'He has,' Izawa replied, 'but apparently given the short notice they already had other plans.'

'I'm in,' Kizuna suddenly said.

'You are?' Kyosuke asked her.

'Sure,' Kizuna said, 'it's been ages since we went somewhere altogether, it'd be a good team exercise.'

'Also,' Seisuke added, 'it's the last weekend before the start of the next academic year.'

'I would like to go too,' Ryoko said.

'Do you think Akito will be able to take the entire weekend off?' Kyosuke asked her.

'I doubt it,' Ryoko said, 'but I'll ask him anyway.'

'Guys?' Masato said looking at the rest of the Arrows, 'what do you say?'

'We're in,' Yuta said talking on his and Shige's behalf.

'We're in too,' Shuji added while Tatsuya just nodded.

'Junya? Shinji?' Izawa asked, 'what about you two?'

'I've never been to that onsen before,' Shinji confessed.

That was enough for Junya to let out a sigh and give in:

'Alright, count us in too.'

'Sweet,' Masato said, 'Kei, if you bail on us now…'

'Who's bailing on who, idiot?' Kei said, 'of course I'm coming.'

'Eiji, Yayoi-chan,' Izawa said, 'you're coming, right?'

'Yayoi?' Eiji said and they all watched his girlfriend giving him a tiny nod, 'we're in,' he said smiling happily.

'Fantastic,' Masato exclaimed, 'I'm going to send him an email right now.'

Two days later, on Friday evening, all thirteen members of the Golden Arrows plus Ryoko, Yayoi and Kaori headed to the town of Isobe where, located at the outskirts, they saw the large pools used by the onsen to either cool or warm the water the guests would use for their baths. Not far from there, just at one end of a large forest, they saw the huge traditionally built guest house where they would be staying for two nights.

'It's such a pity Akito couldn't make it,' Kyosuke commented to Ryoko while they climbed out of the RZ-1.

'It can't be helped,' Ryoko said, 'he's just so busy these days.'

'You're still okay with that, right?' Kyosuke asked keeping an even tone.

'Yes,' Ryoko replied firmly.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said giving her a small smile.

Soon they were joined by the rest of the team and, leaving their beloved cars parked in front of the building, they started making their way to its entrance when they saw Jun Morioka's tall frame walking towards them.

'You've made it!' he exclaimed sounding happy.

'Yes,' Masato confirmed, 'this place looks really cool,' he added surveying the onsen.

'It's better inside,' Jun said, 'come on in, I'll be your guide this evening.'

The whole bunch of them followed the guy inside where they found a reception area. There, Jun himself checked them in and gave them the keys to their rooms. The girls would be sharing a small four futon room while the boys would be distributed in two different slightly bigger rooms containing six futons each. Jun then told them to go and leave the bags in their chosen room so that they could continue with the mini-tour. The girls were the fastest and met back with Jun a few minutes later while the boys took considerably longer due to a small argument breaking out regarding how they would split themselves in the two rooms.

'No way on earth,' Junya protested seeing that Shige and Yuta had every intention of sleeping with Shinji.

'But…'

'You are not choosing this room,' he interrupted Yuta.

'What's going on?' Kyosuke asked joining them in the room.

'I don't want these two in here,' Junya told him.

'Alright,' Shige said and, taking Shinji's bag, he said, 'we'll go to the other room.'

'What?' Shinij asked sounding positively terrified.

'He's staying here with me,' Junya said snatching the bag from Shige's grasp.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'Seisuke, Masato, Izawa and I will stay here with Junya and Shinji.'

'Kyosuke-san…'

'Yuta, you and Shige will stay with Kei, Eiji, Shuji and Tatsuya,' Kyosuke told him.

'Fine,' Yuta said dragging the word then, he glanced at Shinji and said, 'we'll see you at the hot pool.'

Shinji swallowed hard before he nodded his very reluctant agreement.

At long last, after everyone was more or less satisfied with their accommodation arrangements, they joined Jun and the girls who looked like they had been waiting forever instead of just a few minutes but before any of them could say anything, their host started walking towards a big sliding door and, opening it, he said:

'This way.'

The followed him and there, right in front of their eyes, they saw a huge pool filled with cold water. They even had a waterslide on one of the sides as well as a few chaise-longue which were covered by umbrellas.

'This is the day pool,' Jun explained, 'the water's temperature is kept at about twenty three degrees celcius so you'll be able to use it tomorrow providing the weather's as mild as it was today. You're of course welcome to take a swim in it tonight if you like.' He stopped speaking and then he walked down a flight of stairs which ran alongside the pool. There, they saw another sliding door, 'this way is to the hot pools.'

'Wow,' Kizuna found herself gasping.

'They're massive,' Seisuke commented.

'There are a few smaller, more private ones,' Jun explained, 'feel free to request for one if you like.'

The mini-tour continued with Jun telling them about the massage facilities they had at their disposal as well as a few other amenities the guest could use when they were out of the pools. They ended up at the dinning room where Jun's family had already set up their table offering the best in traditional Japanese cuisine.

'This looks great,' Kyosuke said eyeing the food hungrily.

'This place really is worth every yen we've paid,' Eiji commented.

'I'm glad to hear that,' Jun replied looking proud, 'now, I'll leave you alone so that you can enjoy your meal, should you need anything, just ring the bell and myself or a member of the staff will be happy to assist you.'

'Thank you,' Masato said.

'No,' Jun countered shaking his head once, 'thank you, you really saved the day, if you hadn't come my father would have lost a lot of money. We basically remained open for this weekend because of that party.'

'We're happy to be of help then,' Izawa said.

Jun nodded once before leaving the room and then all sixteen of them started enjoying their meal while they discussed what their plans for the weekend. Masato commented that there was a pass running across the forest next to the onsen and, predictably, that made most of them forget about any of the pools.

'We should go and check it out,' Kei said.

'Definitely,' Seisuke agreed.

'But Seisuke,' Kaori protested, 'what about the hot pool?'

'There's heaps of time for that,' Seisuke said.

'Alright,' Kaori surrendered a little too easily.

'I'm staying here,' Ryoko told her, 'we should relish the fact that, with them gone, it'll be nice and quiet.'

'True,' Kaori agreed.

'In that case,' Yayoi said, 'I think I'll stay with you too.'

'You'll be going with them,' Ryoko said looking at Kizuna, 'won't you?'

'I'm not so sure,' the older girl replied, 'now you've mentioned, I think I'll enjoy that nice and quiet too.'

'Are you sure?' Kyosuke asked his girlfriend.

'Positive,' Kizuna replied, 'you boys go and play to your hearts' content while us girls will just relax here.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said and, talking to the whole team, he added, 'we'll move out after dinner.'

'Cool!' a few of them shouted.

With that decided, they ate their food a little too fast to really taste the delicacies they had been served and it wasn't ten o'clock in the evening when twelve of the thirteen members of the Golden Arrows were back in the car park on their way to retrieve their beloved cars. They hadn't even unlocked them when they saw Jun hurrying out of the building. The guy ran towards Kyosuke and, sounding a little short of breath, he said:

'Are you going to the forest's pass?'

'Yes, that's right,' Kyosuke replied frowning a little, 'that's not a problem, is it?'

'No, of course not,' Jun replied, 'I was just wondering if you guys would let me come with you.'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied, his frown getting replaced with a smile, 'it's a public road, after all.'

'It is,' Jun confirmed, 'and a really nice one. It's in that road where I learned how to drive.'

'In that case,' Kyosuke said, 'I'd be grateful if you showed us the way around.'

'With pleasure,' Jun replied.

A few minutes later, the Golden Arrows were following the blue MX7 driven by Jun Morioka. The car had the two Myogi Devils stickers visible on both of the rear quarter panels of the car and even if it wasn't brand new, Kyosuke could tell that the roadster's mechanics were in pristine conditions and it was perfectly balanced.

Soon, all thirteen cars left the main road and crossing a small bridge which ran over a stream, they entered a dark, seemingly straight road which led them inside a thick forest of mixed pine trees, oaks and other wild vegetation which made the pass look very spooky in the middle of the night. It didn't help that there wasn't a single light illuminating it other than the headlights of their own cars but it was thanks to them that they saw when the straight suddenly ended and gave way to a serpentine of more or less fast corners, hairpins and chicane-like sectors that looked like they had been taken straight out of the most interesting circuits in the world.

'What a road!' one of the Arrows, probably Izawa, exclaimed sounding very excited.

Kyosuke couldn't agree more and while he sent his car into a gentle drift along a right-hander, his thoughts travelled to his girlfriend and he found himself wishing Kizuna was there too with her 350Z for he was sure she would love this exhilarating road as much as her fellow Arrows obviously did. Thankfully, they still had the following night and maybe, Kyosuke thought, they would somehow manage to come back here just the two of them alone.

While the boys were awed by the pass, the girls were getting ready to dip themselves in the hot, minerally rich waters offered by the onsen. Kizuna, Kaory, Ryoko and Yayoi had selected one of the smaller pools, the tall wooden walls surrounding it granting them the maximum level of privacy and for this reason, all four girls removed their yukata to show off their birthday suits with different levels of nonchalance.

'Oh wow,' Yayoi couldn't help but to say seeing Kizuna's naked body.

'What?' the girl asked feeling suddenly embarrassed.

'What I would give to have those boobs,' Yayoi commented eyeing Kizuna's breasts with jealousy.

'Give it up, Yayoi,' Ryoko commented while she started getting into the water, slowly, letting her body get used to the high temperature, 'Kizuna's been blessed by her American genes and there's nothing we can do.'

'Seisuke prefers smaller breasts,' Kaori said joining Ryoko at the pool.

'Lucky you,' Yayoi said, 'Eiji-san…I mean, Eiji would never say it out loud but I think he'd prefer it if…'

'Wait a minute,' Ryoko interrupted sounding slightly scandalised, 'when has Eiji-san seen your…well, your…'

'Ah,' Yayoi gasped looking very guilty.

'What?' Ryoko said, she sat down by the pool's edge forgetting all about it, 'are you telling me that…'

'Well,' Yayoi started, appearing guiltier by the second.

'WHEN?' Ryoko demanded.

'A few days ago, just after White Day,' Yayoi replied biting her lower lip, 'I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, it just happened, we didn't plan it or anything.'

'Oh wow,' Ryoko gasped feeling faint by the shock, the hot temperature of the water wasn't helping her feel any better.

'Ryoko,' Kaori intervened, 'are you trying to tell us that you and Akito…that you two haven't done it yet?'

Ryoko refused to reply but her face made her answer plain enough.

'You two have been together for two and a half years,' Kaori said, 'just how long are you going to make him wait?'

'I don't know…' Ryoko replied with a tiny voice.

'There's no rush,' Yayoi hurried to defend her best friend.

'That's right,' Kizuna agreed finally getting into the water, 'it's not a race, you should take as long as you need to be ready.'

'I would not take too long,' Kaori contradicted them, 'you don't want him to get impatient.'

'Akito's not like that,' Kizuna insisted, 'he'll wait for you for as long as you need so don't you worry about it.'

'I know he will,' Ryoko said trying to sound convincing.

'Oh well,' Kaori said dipping into the water, 'don't tell me I didn't warn you.'

While the four girls tried to relax while soaking in the hot pool, Masato and Izawa had stopped at the other side of the pass, taking a break while Jun shared with them some of the gossip that had been going around the street racing teams.

'Oh,' the guy said, 'did you hear about those bikers?'

'What bikers?' Masato asked him.

'Someone from Tochigi told Hirota-san from the Nagano Alliance to watch out for them,' Jun explained, 'it looks like they go around the mountain passes bothering the teams while they have their runs. There was some racer from Irohazaka who even got pushed with his car down one of the hairpins there.'

'They sound nasty,' Izawa commented.

'They are,' Jun confirmed, 'you should let your leader know, just in case they show up in Mt Akagi.'

'We will,' Masato said, 'thanks for the tip.'

'No worries,' Jun replied then, looking down at the pass on which they could see some of the Golden Arrows cars engaged in their umpteenth run, he got a dreamy look and said, 'you guys are really lucky.'

'What do you mean?' Izawa asked.

'Your team,' Jun said, 'not only you're one of the greatest teams of the region but you're also good friends.'

'Well,' Masato said thinking of Junya, 'not always. We also have our differences from time to time.'

'Oh yes,' Izawa agreed.

'That might be true,' Jun said, 'but, right now, you guys are here, together, as a team.'

'What are you saying?' Masato asked.

'You know that before I asked you to come here,' Jun explained, 'I tried asking Nakazato-san if he could gather the team to come here instead. It turns out that they all said they had something else to do but I know it was because they couldn't be bothered. It feels a little lonely if you think about it and seeing how close you guys are, it just makes me wish I belonged to a team like yours.'

'Why don't you?' Izawa joked.

'What?' Jun asked.

'You could always ask Nakazato to let you join us,' Masato said following up on Izawa's joke.

Jun looked startled for a bit then, he frowned and then he started laughing having finally caught the joke.

'You guys are nuts,' he said trying to calm down.

'They do say that about us,' Izawa agreed smiling at him.

'Guys,' Masato intervened, 'we should head back down before Kyosuke-san sends a search party for us.'

Later on that night, with all the cars back at the car park and while the girls retired for the night, the boys decided to accept Jun's invite to go for a nightly swim. Even if it was just the beginning of spring, the air at the onsen was warm enough, mainly thanks to the hot pools which surrounded the cold one and the result was that it was perfectly plausible to go for a swim at night without any of them freezing to their deaths.

'Aaahhh…' Eiji sighed floating on the water while lying onto his back, 'this feels great!

Just then, Seisuke decided to jump into the pool dropping in it like a bomb, splashing water everywhere.

'HEY!' Eiji and several other people protested but Seisuke just laughed at them, 'oh, really?' Eiji said.

Soon most of them were engaged in a splashing battle and only Kyosuke and Junya decided to stay out of it.

'They're so immature,' Junya complained.

'They're just having fun,' Kyosuke commented eyeing them in an almost fatherly way.

'Sometimes, you're too soft on them,' Junya commented.

'Sometimes, it's okay to be soft,' Kyosuke countered, 'you should try it one day.'

'Yeah, right,' Junya said sounding very sceptic.

He then scowled seeing Yuta and Shige walking toward them, drenched, trembling a bit but looking very happy.

'Can we join you?' Yuta asked looking at the chair next to Kyosuke.

'Sure,' the leader replied. Kyosuke waited until their resident UFO boys were settled to say, 'Shige, I've been meaning to ask you something,' he stopped to see he had the guy's attention, 'what do you use to dye your hair? Because no matter what I use for mine, I can never make it look as natural as yours does.'

'That's because it is natural,' Yuta said.

'What?' Junya asked.

'It's true,' Shige announced, 'you can ask Tatsu-chan or Shuji-chan if you don't believe me.'

'But…'

'Tell them how it happened,' Yuta encouraged him, 'it's a really cool story.'

'Okay,' Shige said, 'as you know Tatsu-chan, Shuji-chan and myself have been friends forever because our parents met during their high school days. One evening, my parents and I had been to Tatsu-chan's house for dinner and we were returning to our home when there was a big flash of light which made Dad lose control of the car. We crashed and they died and when the police found me, I was unconscious. I woke up at the hospital a few days later and my hair had started turning white. It became like this shortly after.'

'You're lying,' Junya exclaimed.

'He's not,' Yuta defended him, 'we're pretty sure that that flashing light was coming from a UFO.'

'That's why my hair turned white,' Shige said, 'it's a common reaction from us human when we're…'

'Stop it,' Junya commanded getting up from his chair, 'you're freaking me out.'

'It's all true,' Yuta called out after him, 'whether you believe in it or not, his hair is proof of it.'

Kyosuke gulped for air while his brain tried to find a much more reasonable explanation then, it occurred to him:

'Shige, I didn't know you were an orphan, you're always talking about your Mum and Dad and…'

'Oh,' Shige interrupted him, 'Tatsu-chan's parents adopted me when my own died. They asked me to call them Mum and Dad so that's what I started calling them, I was five years old so it all felt normal to me.'

Kyosuke felt a bit weirded out that he had just found out about something as crucial as that regarding two of the members of the team and, with that, he made a mental note to use the next two days to learn as much as possible about every single member of his team and when on Sunday evening they all returned to their home, Kyosuke was very happy he had agreed to going to the onsen.

Just like Kizuna had said, it had been a fantastic team building experience and now he felt accomplished and more than ready to face his fourth and final year of his Automotive Engineer course as well as another exciting season leading the Golden Arrows; one that would end with the race he'd been looking forward to for most of his life: in just six months more, he would, at long last, battle with Akito Fujiwara.

Feeling excited with the prospect, he nearly missed his phone ringing.

'Hello?' Kyosuke said leaving his bag next to his bed.

'Takahashi,' Taro Nakazato said using an unusually harsh tone of voice, 'what are you playing at?'

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked.

'You know very well what I mean,' Taro said, 'I didn't think you'd go around stealing other team's members.'

'Stealing what?' Kyosuke asked now sounding very confused.

'Morioka Jun,' Taro replied, 'he just called me asking me to let him resign from the Myogi Devils.'

'But…'

'He said he wants to join the Golden Arrows,' Taro announced.

'Listen,' Kyosuke said trying to be reasonable, 'I don't know anything about that, I…'

'I couldn't care less,' Taro interrupted him.

'Naka…'

'If you want me to let Morioka go,' Taro said, 'then you'll have to beat me in a race.'

'Nakazato,' he tried again, 'I'm telling you that I know nothing about...'

'I'm challenging you to a race,' Taro said ignoring him, 'but this time, the course will be Mt Akagi's.'

_To be continued…_


	58. Chapter Fifty Seven

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty Seven_

Kyosuke only had the time to hear Nakazato telling him to be at Mt Akagi's base the following Saturday at ten o'clock sharp before the leader of the Myogi Devils closed the call without waiting for an answer. Very slowly, Kyosuke removed the now mute phone from his ear and gave himself a couple of seconds to think.

Next, he moved to the door with the phone still in his hand, opened it and walked the very short distance which separated him from Seisuke's bedroom. In his haste to talk to his younger brother, Kyosuke opened the door without bothering to knock on it first and then he saw something he definitely didn't need to see.

'Aniki!' a startled Seisuke exclaimed pulling himself away from Kaori.

The girl had the decency to blush a little while she sat down on the bed while trying to tidy her hair up.

'Sorry,' Kyosuke felt compelled to say, 'I forgot you weren't on your own.'

'It's alright,' Seisuke said even though it clearly wasn't, 'what's up?'

'Er…' Kyosuke hesitated, 'I need to talk to you. In private,' he added.

'Oh,' Kaori offered him a sweet smile, 'Seisuke doesn't have any secrets with me.'

'I'm glad to hear that,' Kyosuke replied keeping a civil tone, 'however, this is a matter that concerns the Golden Arrows and therefore I need to talk to him in private, if you don't mind.'

'If you really must,' Kaori said then, she looked at Seisuke and asked, 'shall I stay here?'

'Yes, please,' Seisuke replied, he then frowned a little and said to his brother, 'I take we'll go to your room?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied eager to remove himself from Kaori's presence as fast as he could.

'Alright,' Seisuke told him, to Kaori, he said, 'I'll be back in a minute.'

'I'll count the seconds,' Kaori replied.

Kyosuke hardly heard her cheesy reply, instead he started making his way back into his room hoping that Seisuke would have the good sense to follow him. He did and, soon, the two brothers sat one in front of the other and in the two seconds it took Kyosuke to organise his ideas, Seisuke frowned at him and said:

'You could have been nicer to her, you know?'

'Who?' Kyosuke asked playing dumb.

'Kaori, who else?' Seisuke said nevertheless.

'I'm sorry,' Kyosuke said, 'I just forgot she was here, but that's not what's important, I…'

'She is important to me,' Seisuke argued, 'it's been ages since we had a relationship as good as it's now.'

'Is it really?' Kyosuke asked him barely hiding his incredulity.

'It is,' Seisuke replied, 'we've never been more in synch, I really should have introduced her to our parents ages ago. She's super sweet to me and you've seen it yourself, she even came to our last training session and she also joined us at the onsen this weekend, didn't she?'

'She did,' Kyosuke said and mentally, he added, 'unfortunately.'

'She told me that this time she'll really make an effort to accept that I like racing as much as I like being with her.'

Kyosuke didn't say anything to that.

'Anyway,' Seisuke said, 'what did you want to discuss with me?'

'Morioka Jun,' Kyosuke replied.

'What about him?' Seisuke asked.

'What do you know about him?' Kyosuke asked him.

'No much more than what you do,' Seisuke replied, 'he's a member of the Devils, drives a Toyota MR3, his family own a freaking fantastic onsen and he used to be childhood friends with Kazuya. Why the sudden interest?'

'He was friends with Kazuya?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'I thought you knew that.'

'I obviously didn't,' Kyosuke said.

'Kazuya even commented to me that he wished he'd known that Morioka was into racing,' Seisuke explained, 'Kazuya said that if he had known that, he would have tried to get Morioka into our team.'

'He did?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'why are you asking me all of these questions?'

'Nakazato just called me,' Kyosuke explained, 'he said Morioka has asked him to let him leave the Devils…'

'Oh,' Seisuke interrupted him, 'why would he want to do that?'

'…because he wants to join us,' Kyosuke finished.

'Seriously?' Seisuke said his eyes wide with surprise.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied, 'but that's not all.'

'What else is there?' he asked now sounding a little afraid.

'Naturally,' Kyosuke replied, 'Nakazato won't let Morioka go unless I race him first.'

'Again?' Seisuke said, 'you've already beaten him. In fact, we both have.'

'That's true,' Kyosuke said, 'but we raced him in Mt Myogi. This time, Nakazato wants to race in Mt Akagi.'

'Is he nuts?' Seisuke snorted in disbelief.

'I don't know,' Kyosuke replied, 'but the thing is, he's issued the challenge and he'll be waiting for me this coming Saturday. No matter what happens with Morioka, there's no way I can back down now, is there?'

Seisuke thought about it for a second before he shook his head.

'No,' he said, 'if you do, it'll be a disaster in terms of our reputation.'

Kyosuke nodded and let out a frustrated sigh.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'I don't know if this will help but I don't think it's a bad idea.'

'Which part?'

'All of it,' Seisuke replied, 'accepting Morioka into our team and racing Nakazato in Mt Akagi.'

'But…'

'Just hear me out,' he requested, 'we know Kazuya would have asked Morioka to join us anyway and, as far as I'm concerned, if Kazuya vouches for the guy, then he's also got my vote and, you'd approve too, right?'

'Probably,' Kyosuke admitted.

'Now,' Seisuke continued, 'I know that it's against our rules to race anyone in our home course but I don't think we can look at this race as a conventional challenge from one team to another, can we?'

'Not really,' Kyosuke said.

'Then,' Seisuke finished, 'we could just think of it as a one-off thing. Even Dad had battles on Mt Akagi from time to time, didn't he? Unless I'm very much mistaken, he even raced Akito's father there once.'

'He did,' Kyosuke confirmed.

'Then race him,' Seisuke said, 'I don't think anyone will have anything against it and, if anyone does, you're our leader, if there's anyone who should be allowed to do whatever he wants, that is you so, don't worry.'

'In short,' Kyosuke summarised, 'you're telling me that you would have my back if I decided to race Nakazato and that you would support me if I accepted Morioka's request to join our team.'

'Of course,' Seisuke replied, 'Aniki, is not like if you need to ask: I'll always have your back, no matter what.'

'Thanks,' Kyosuke said feeling a little emotional.

'You're welcome,' Seisuke said.

They stayed in silence for a second before Seisuke got up and, smiling in his usual playful way, he said:

'I take the meeting is adjourned?'

'It is,' Kyosuke replied then, before Seisuke could leave the room, he added, 'I'm going to organise an emergency meeting for tomorrow evening at around nine, do you think you'll be able to make it?'

'I'll be there,' Seisuke replied.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said.

Watching his younger brother go, he decided that maybe his hunch regarding Kaori was a little off. Seisuke had not looked this happy and relaxed in a very long time and Kyosuke was fully aware that the reason for this cheerfulness was because of the drastic improvement of his relationship with Kaori. Shaking his head once, he decided to trust his brother's judgement and, instead, he looked at his phone and started typing an email to inform every member of the Golden Arrows about the emergency meeting. Once he sent that, he pressed the autodial button so that he could tell Kizuna what had happened in the hour they'd been apart.

The following day it was nearly noon when Takumi parked one of the Centre's MPVs just outside the main entrance of the state-run high school he had attended in his youth and where his son Akito had just started his third and final year. The uniform clad boy was already there not-so-patiently waiting for him.

'You're so late!' Akito complained climbing into the van.

'Sorry,' Takumi said, 'I had a few errands to do for the Centre.'

'I can see that,' Akito said looking around the vehicle, 'what happened to the 86?'

'I'm giving it a day off,' Takumi replied.

'How lucky,' Akito commented with a small voice.

'Are you complaining?' Takumi challenged him.

'No, I'm not,' Akito countered, 'it's just that I don't get the reason why I had to go to school today.'

'Because it's the first day?' Takumi ventured with a hint of sarcasm.

'Precisely,' Akito said, 'all we did was stand in the gym, listen to the same old boring speech and check the names and faces of the people we'll have to see every day for the rest of the year, it was a waste of time.'

'It was not,' Takumi countered, 'Akito, this is your third year, after that you'll graduate and you won't be able to enjoy high school life anymore. I think it's important that you have these moments or you'll regret it.'

'Regret it?' Akito asked sounding incredulous, 'I can't wait to finish school!'

'Forget it,' Takumi said sighing with resignation, 'you'll understand once you're older.'

'That is so cliché, Dad,' Akito sneered.

'But it's also very true,' Takumi countered, 'and since I have more experience in life than you do, you lose.'

Akito opened his mouth to protest but, finding no convincing enough arguments, he decided to shut it again.

'Anyway,' Takumi said sounding just a tad smug, 'Tanaka-san said that the meeting would start later today.'

'Why?' Akito asked.

'No idea,' Takumi replied, 'but it's doing us a favour since this way we won't have to rush there.'

Akito repressed a chuckle when, stealing a glance at the speedometer, he saw that his father was making the van go a little faster than it should have gone if the man really wanted to take things easy. The result: they made it to the PIAA-Tanaka Team training facilities about thirty minutes before they were supposed to.

'No rush, huh?' Akito asked climbing out of the van.

Takumi didn't answer to that and, instead, he locked the MPV and started walking towards the small building where Tanaka-san had his offices. Just then, coming out of it, they saw their race driver Jito Go storming out of the office looking like he'd just had a massive argument with someone. The man didn't even see Akito nor Takumi as he literally ran towards his own car, getting in it and driving away immediately after.

'Fujiwara-san, Fujiwara-kun,' Tanaka-san said seeing them there, 'you're a little early.'

'Yes,' Takumi managed to reply.

'No worries,' Tanaka-san said, 'we should go in, there are a few things we need to discuss.'

'Alright,' Takumi said.

'Tanaka-san,' Akito dared to ask, 'what's wrong with Go-san?'

The Team Manager stopped half way through the door and, turning round, he looked at Akito and said:

'To be honest, I don't know.'

'Ah,' Akito said for lack of anything better to say.

'But I'll tell you one thing,' Tanaka-san said eyeing him intently, 'I hope you'll be ready when the time comes because, if he fails to pull himself together and screws up in the next race, you'll be taking over his race seat.'

'What?' Akito asked sounding startled.

'You heard me,' Tanaka-san said, 'now, do come in, the mechanics are eager to listen to your input.'

'Yes, sir,' Akito said feeling a little light-headed.

The meeting was over a couple of hours later during which Akito did his best to explain to the mechanics his impressions regarding the way the PIAA-Tanaka Dallara handled after the slight modifications applied to it during the first race of the season in Canada. While they listened, they took occasional notes and, in the end, it was agreed that it would be better to sacrifice a bit of power if it meant improving the car's grip.

'Next race is in Barcelona,' Takumi commented while they drove back to Shibukawa.

'What?' Akito asked him.

'I said that the next race is in Barcelona,' Takumi repeated.

'Yeah,' he said still sounding very out of it.

'What's wrong son?' Takumi asked.

'I'm worried about Go-san,' Akito replied, 'do you think Tanaka-san meant it when he said what he said.'

'Of course he did,' Takumi said, 'Tanaka-san is running a business, if the people he works with aren't doing their job properly, he needs to replace them with someone who is willing to do a better job.'

'I know that,' Akito said, 'it's just that…I'm not sure if I'm ready to debut in a proper GP2 race yet.'

'Why not?' Takumi asked him.

'Don't you think I'm too green?' Akito asked back.

'Not really,' Takumi replied sounding honest, 'sure, that Go kid has more experience than you do but you're doing a much better job than he is when it comes to setting the car up. Even the technical staff think so.'

'They do?' Akito asked.

'Son,' Takumi said, 'if you want your ego fed, you're talking to the wrong person.'

'Very funny,' Akito complained.

'But there's something else worrying you, isn't there?' Takumi asked.

'You're scary, did you know that?' Akito said.

'Spill it out,' Takumi ordered.

'Alright, alright,' Akito said, 'there's another reason why I wouldn't be happy to debut like this. I mean, if Go-san gets kicked out of the team, wouldn't it be a little selfish of me to use up his misery for my own gain?'

'Are you seriously asking me that?' Takumi asked.

'Yes, I am,' Akito said sounding as serious as possible.

'You shouldn't even factor that in,' Takumi said, 'this kind of thing happens all the time, in both motorsport racing as well as other sports. Heck, I think that even Michael Schumacher got his big break in F1 because of someone else's disgrace. If I don't remember incorrectly, he replaced another racer after he got himself arrested.'

'Arrested?' Akito asked his voice sounding a little high pitched.

'Arrested,' Takumi confirmed, 'so, I'm telling you not to worry about Go-kun. I know you're a good kid and all but, if you want to make it big in racing, you can't afford to be so considered of other people's feelings.'

'I know,' Akito said.

'Then,' Takumi finished, 'if Go-kun gets kicked out of the team or resigns or whatever and Tanaka-san offers you his race seat, you'll just accept it graciously and will be thankful you're given such a good chance, okay?'

'Yes, Dad,' Akito replied.

'Alright,' Takumi said.

A few hours later and while Akito enjoyed his dinner home with his family, Kyosuke and Seisuke drove to the base of Mt Akagi's Pass ready to stand united against whichever negative reaction they got from their team.

'Alright,' Junya said once they were all gathered at their usual parking area, 'what's the big emergency?'

'Guys,' Kyosuke said, 'what I'm going to say will come as a bit of a shock to you so I'm asking you to listen to me till the end and to let me explain the reasons which have led me to make such a decision, alright?'

'Leader,' a very worried Masato said, 'you're not dissolving the team, are you?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied with a soft chuckle, 'far from that.'

'What's wrong then?' Kei asked.

'If we let him talk, he might explain it to us,' Junya intervened, 'so let's just be quiet.'

'Thank you,' Kyosuke said a tad reluctantly, 'now, you all know Morioka Jun since we've just spent the entire weekend in the onsen his family runs. Yesterday, when I returned home I received a call from Nakazato who told me that Morioka wants to quit his team and join ours. He also challenged me to a race here in Mt Akagi.

His speech was met with silence.

Excepting Seisuke and Kizuna, who had been warned in advance, everyone else was too stunned for words.

'I've decided to accept both the challenge as well as Morioka's request,' Kyosuke said.

'Why?' Junya finally reacted.

'Because Morioka's a childhood friend of Kazuya's,' Kyosuke replied, 'and I was told last night that Kazuya himself would have asked Morioka to be part of our team if he had known that he was into racing.'

'That's true,' Masato said.

'We even heard him saying it ourselves,' Izawa said.

'In fact,' Masato added now looking a little guilty, 'I think we know the reason why Morioka did what he did.'

'You do?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yeah,' Izawa replied.

'We're pretty sure it's our fault,' Masato explained.

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Well,' Masato said glancing quickly at Izawa who gave him a nod, 'we kind of joked about it with him.'

'You what?' Seisuke asked.

'He made a comment which made us think he wasn't enjoying himself as a member of the Devils,' Masato explained, 'he said he was jealous of how close we were and we joked telling him that he should join us.'

'We're really sorry,' Izawa added looking at Kyosuke, 'we never dreamed he would take us seriously.'

The Golden Arrows leader looked a little surprised by the sudden revelation but, recovering quickly, he said:

'It's okay, at least this explains many, many things.'

'So,' Junya said, 'you're just going to accept him into the team?'

'It's not so easy,' Kyosuke said, 'Nakazato will only let him go if I beat him in a race here in Mt Akagi.'

'And you'll accept that condition, right?' Eiji asked.

'Yes, I…'

'Wait a minute,' Junya predictably protested, 'what happened to our rules? We're not supposed to race anyone here in our home course, aren't we? Or are you just going to ignore that for your own convenience?'

'That's precisely what I'm going to do,' Kyosuke said with nonchalance.

'Junya,' Seisuke said, 'the rule applies to challenges issued to us as a team. Since Nakazato challenged Aniki directly, this is a race between two team leaders to settle a matter which affects both teams.'

'That's right,' Kizuna finally spoke, 'it's an entirely different concept.'

'Trust you two to side with him,' Junya sneered.

'They're not the only ones,' Eiji said while Masato and Izawa nodded, feeling grateful they were off the hook.

'That's right,' Kei added then, seeing Junya's glare, he said, 'he's our team leader, is he not?'

'Your point being?' Junya said.

'My point is,' Kei replied, 'that if our leader thinks something is okay, then it's okay.'

'Exactly,' Yuta agreed.

'Junya,' Kyosuke said, 'this was a difficult decision for me too and if you can't trust me, I hope you'll be able to trust your own cousin. I spoke to Kazuya before I came here and he said he fully approved of the idea.'

Junya didn't speak for a couple of seconds then, he sighed heavily in resignation and said:

'Alright, as usual, I'm outnumbered.'

'Thank you,' Kyosuke said.

'So, when is the happy event?' he asked sounding very sarcastic.

'This Saturday, at ten,' Kyosuke replied keeping his cool.

'Alright,' Junya said, 'if that is all, we have an early morning tomorrow so we'll take our leave now.'

With that, they saw him and Shinji getting onboard their cars and, a few instants later, they were watching the taillights of the little Honda Beat as it followed Junya's S18 out of the parking area. Only then Kyosuke breathed easy: he had, somehow, won yet another tiresome argument against Junya and if he had to be honest, he was getting rather sick of them. Alas, he didn't have the time nor disposition to deal with that.

'Alright,' he said talking to the rest of the team, 'we won't have any training sessions before the race so, I trust I'll be able to see you all on Saturday about an hour before the race. Till then, do take care everyone.'

'We will,' Kizuna promised on their behalf.

The first week back at the Maebashi Institute of Technology flew by for both Kyosuke and Kizuna. Being in his final year meant that he was now a senpai to most of the student body and it felt really weird to see the fresh faces of the first years. He wondered if he also looked so innocent back when he started his course.

'Are you ready?' he heard Kizuna asking him poking her head through his bedroom's door.

'I am,' Kyosuke said taking his wallet.

'Alright,' Kizuna said, 'Seisuke and Kaori just left, he said she needed to stop by the mini-market first.'

'Why?' Kyosuke asked her.

'No idea,' Kizuna replied.

The two of them made it to the living room and as they walked past it, they saw his parents sitting there.

'Mum, Dad,' Kyosuke said, 'we're leaving.'

'Alright,' Ryosuke said.

'Be careful!' Akiko added.

'We will be,' Kyosuke promised.

The two of them then stepped into the garage where they found Kyosuke's RZ-1 as well as Kizuna's 350Z. They stopped just briefly to kiss before they climbed into their cars and, as he usually did, he let Kizuna drive ahead of him, following her Nissan all the way to the bottom of Mt Akagi's Pass where he found that, no only every member of the Golden Arrows was already there but Kyosuke also saw a few members of the Nagano Alliance and all of the Myogi Devils, with Taro Nakazato standing next to a nervous Jun Morioka.

'They're very early,' Kizuna commented over the radio.

'No kidding,' Kyosuke replied flatly.

Driving to their usual spot of the parking area, Kyosuke and Kizuna joined the rest of the Golden Arrows while he prepared himself mentally for the verbal battle which would take place before the actual race.

'So,' Taro said, 'I see you accepted my challenge.'

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied.

'In that case,' Taro said, 'I take you're also going to accept Morioka as a member of your team.'

'If I win the race, yes,' Kyosuke replied.

'Oh, you flatter me if you think I have a chance,' Taro laughed humourlessly.

'I don't,' Kyosuke replied very serious, 'a race is always a race no matter where. Anything can happen.'

'I should know,' Taro said, 'after all, you and your brother have both beaten me in my own home course.'

'My point exactly,' Kyosuke replied.

'In that case,' Taro said, 'we'll throw a coin to decide whether it'll be an uphill or a downhill race.'

'As you prefer,' Kyosuke replied.

'Takahashi-san…' Jun started.

'Not now,' Taro interrupted him, 'I'm still your team leader, if you have anything to want to discuss with Takahashi, you'll hold your tongue until the end of the race, is that clear?'

'Yes,' Jun said.

'Good,' Taro said, 'now, just as we agreed, you'll get in your car and stay there until the end of the race.'

'Yes,' Jun repeated.

With that, the guy just threw an apologetic glance at Kyosuke before he walked to his blue Toyota MR3.

Taro Nakazato meanwhile gave a coin to the leader of the Nagano Alliance who would be acting as a neutral referee for them as well as take care of the countdown. Yasuo threw the coin up in the air and, catching it on his palm, he glanced at Taro and Kyosuke and asked them to make their choices.

'Heads say we go uphill,' Taro said.

'Nakazato…'

'Alright,' Yasuo said interrupting Kyosuke's attempt to protest. He lifted his hand to uncover the coin and, smiling at Kyosuke, he said, 'tough luck, my friend, it looks like the Goddess of Fortune wants an uphill race.'

'Perfect,' Taro said.

'Nakazato,' Kyosuke tried again, 'I…'

'Let's just get this started, shall we?'

Without waiting for his answer, the leader of the Myogi Devils just made his way to his midnight blue Mitsubishi X-3 which reminded Kyosuke of the prototypes they'd raced a few months before. He watched Taro exchanging a few words with some of the members of his team who were obviously cheering for him and seeing such a friendly exchange, it made him wonder which reasons Jun Morioka had to be jealous of the Golden Arrows. From what he could see, the Myogi Devils looked to be as close as they were, if not closer.

'I don't have time for that,' Kyosuke thought while he walked to his own car.

'That Nakazato's gone insane,' he heard Eiji whispering to Kei while he opened the RZ-1's door.

'Don't pay attention to him,' Seisuke said from the other side of Kyosuke's Mazda.

'I won't,' Kyosuke promised, he glanced at Kizuna who nodded once and gave him an encouraging smile before climbing into his car. He strapped himself onto the bucket seat and readied himself for the battle.

_To be continued…_


	59. Chapter Fifty Eight

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty Eight_

While the two cars lined next to each other, Kyosuke considered the strategy he was going to use for the race. He could play it safe and just take off ahead of Taro at the GO! which would practically guarantee him the win but wouldn't say a lot about his sportsmanship or, he could just do what he usually did and give an advantage to his opponent by letting him take the lead. Testing his grasp of the steering wheel, Kyosuke waited until Yasuo stood in front of the two cars. Raising his arm, the Nagano Alliance leader started the countdown:

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

The people watching the start saw Taro's Mitsubishi easing its way ahead of Kyosuke's Mazda but, when the two cars got to the first corner, they saw that the distance was minimal.

'We've so won this race,' Junya muttered to himself.

Meanwhile, Kyosuke stayed behind Taro's car, taking the chance to observe it carefully to see if he could spot anything different in it. He did. Within just a few corners, he saw that the car had somewhat become easier to handle which made Kyosuke believe that either Taro had finally found the perfect suspension set-up or, more likely, his driving had radically improved.

For the following corners, Kyosuke entertained himself by figuring out the main differences between Taro's old driving style and this new-and-improved version. He saw that while the guy used to hesitate a bit when tackling fast turns, he no longer displayed that weakness and the way he handled his Mitsubishi was surer and a lot more precise. Kyosuke was very pleased.

Entering a right-hander, Kyosuke remembered something his father and uncle always said regarding how satisfactory it was for them to see that their rivals kept on growing. They were right and Kyosuke found himself thinking of the many drivers he had battled with. Had they also improved over the years as much as Taro Nakazato? Somehow, he was curious to find out.

But not now, Kyosuke thought getting his concentration back on the race. Taro had managed to increase the gap by a hair and that made Kyosuke put a little bit of effort into catching up with the guy. He then decided that postponing the moment in which he would attack would probably be an insult to Taro's intelligence and he respected the guy too much to do that.

For this reason, he started mapping out all the possible attack points within the following corners.

Right then, they were cruising along the final portion of the gentler slope which led to the steep uphill which made Mt Akagi's famous. Kyosuke knew that just before that change in the road's gradient, there would be a considerably large hard shoulder and that following that, there was a very wide left-hander. It was in that point that he overtaking manoeuvre would be the easiest. He kept on driving behind Taro for a while longer and, just as they reached that specific sector, he saw that the Mitsubishi started veering towards the hard shoulder.

'Oh,' Kyosuke gasped feeling a little amused.

Recalibrating the pressure onto the pedals and moving the steering wheel, he made the car slide towards the opposite direction the Taro was taking his car. Then, using the right side of the road, the one the Mitsubishi had just vacated, he pushed his car into the gap, levelling with the Mitsubishi just as the two cars were being sent into the left-hander. In theory, Taro had the advantage since he was already veering leftwards but that Kyosuke didn't allow himself to be worried.

Instead, he focused all of his energies into keeping his RZ-1 in perfect parallel with the X-3 and, like this, he managed to exit the left-hander at the same exact time as Taro did. They then drove together till the first, steeper corner which happened to be a right-hander. There, Kyosuke used his advantage to enter the corner first and, opening the throttle, he let the car slid right ahead of the Mitsubishi. He then proceeded to exit the corner and readied himself to defend the lead he'd just conquered.

Meanwhile, inside the X-3, the Myogi Devils leader swore seeing just how easily the Golden Arrows leader had managed to overtake him. He had prepared himself mentally for that moment but it still stung to verify first-hand the sheer superiority Kyosuke Takahashi had when it came to Mt Akagi's uphill. It really was a huge blow to anyone's ego but, doing his best to forget about that, Taro focused on trying to keep up with the guy so that, at least, he wouldn't lose sight of him way before they got to the end of the course.

A few minutes later, they had covered over three quarters of the distance to the summit when Kyosuke heard the thundering noise of several powerful engines coming from above.

'Kyosuke-san,' he heard Shuji's voice reporting from up the road, 'we've just seen a few motorbikes heading your way, please be careful.'

'They're already here,' Kyosuke replied trying to sound calm.

'Oh,' Shuji gasped.

Just then, Kyosuke saw the headlights of at least six or seven different motorbikes. From what he could see with the headlights of his RZ-1, they were all Japanese models and from what he could hear, the engines were at the very least about a thousand cc or more each. He had just enough time to check the rear view mirror to see that Taro's X-3 was nowhere near him.

Not knowing what to expect, he continued driving up the road, hoping the bikers would have the common sense to dodge the car. After all, while Kyosuke was well protected by his RZ-1, if any of those bikers fell, he would have nothing to protect himself. He had just finished that thought when he saw that two of the bikes were driving aiming straight at the front of his car.

In a very sick game of chicken, they pulled away from the Mazda at the very last possible instant. Kyosuke swore when he entered the following corner and saw that from the other four or five motorbikes, another two were heading towards him. This time, Kyosuke veered towards the inside of the corner, trying to keep as close as possible to the wall when one of the riders seemed to lose control of his motorbike and before Kyosuke could do anything to prevent it, he saw the machine crashing squarely against the front bumper of his beloved Mazda.

The rest happened in slow motion:

The fender of the motorbike's front tyre became stuck to the car's front bumper and that made it clip in a way which lifted the machine upwards while it sent the biker flying out of his ride, thankfully not going anywhere near the car's windscreen. Kyosuke didn't have the time to worry about the guy for, right at that moment, the motorbike fell sideways and it took every bit of his driving skills and reflexes to avoid driving the car over the two-wheeled machine. He managed to stop the car a few metres ahead and just two or three centimetres from the wall.

Then, the entire world seemed to come to a full stop.

'What the...' he gasped trying to catch his breath.

Glancing over his window, he saw the magnitude of the tragedy: the motorbike had kept sliding on downhill while its rider had been sent straight under one of the guardrails which, thankfully, had prevented him from falling down the cliff. To Kyosuke's disgust, he saw that none of the other motorbikes had bothered to stop, instead, they just kept driving down.

'Seisuke,' he said over the radio, 'get up here, we need you but be very careful: there are six bikers heading down as we speak.'

Without giving him any further details nor waiting for his answer, Kyosuke rushed out of the car just as Taro got around the corner.

Seeing the RZ-1 parked there was enough of a warning for him to see the sliding motorbike too and that made it possible for Taro to stop the car just in time.

But Kyosuke didn't see any of that, instead, he had his attention focused on the badly injured biker.

He didn't have any of Seisuke's medical knowledge but he didn't need it to know that, judging by the weird way in which it was bent, the guy had broken his leg in at least two different places: one when he'd crashed back onto the ground, another one, right where he'd hit it against the guardrail. The poor guy had to be in some very serious pain.

'Hey,' Kyosuke said crouching next to him, 'can you hear me?'

The biker's moan was muffled by the black integral helmet he was wearing.

'What's happened?' Kyosuke heard Taro as he joined them by the guardrail.

Just then, the biker tried to move.

'Stay still,' Kyosuke ordered him placing a hand onto the guy's shoulder, 'help is coming up as we speak.'

'Who's coming up?' Taro asked.

'My brother,' Kyosuke replied, 'he'll know what to do.'

'He's a medical student, isn't he?' Taro asked.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'he's just started his third year.'

The biker moaned again and he tried to sit up.

'Don't move,' Kyosuke said, 'you might make it worse.'

'Great friends you have,' Taro said to the biker sounding very sarcastic.

'Not now,' Kyosuke warned then, looking at the two stopped cars, he said, 'what do we do with our race?'

Taro shrugged and let out a short sigh.

'I guess we're done.'

'How so?' Kyosuke asked, 'we never reached the top and…'

'Come on, Takahashi,' Taro said with a dry chuckle, 'do you really think I could have overtaken you?'

'Well,' Kyosuke said, 'if you hadn't stopped here, you would have.'

'If I hadn't stopped here, I would have been a massive bastard,' Taro said, 'and that's not my style.'

'True,' Kyosuke admitted, 'so, what do we do with Morioka then?'

'What's there to be done?' Taro countered, 'the guy wants to leave my team and join yours. I could try and persuade him to stay with us but I don't think he's ever been entirely happy with us. You see, when he first joined, we were already a pretty tight group of friends and even though I liked to think they were all friendly enough with him, I know well that wasn't always the case so he never had a close relationship with any of us.'

'Is he that shy?' Kyosuke asked.

'Nothing like that,' Taro laughed softly, 'I don't really know the reason why he didn't socialise all that much with us but he told me that ever since he found out that his old childhood friend Kameyama was a member of the Golden Arrows, he started thinking that he'd like to join your team too. He also told me that he never thought it would be possible up until last week. I don't know what happened that made him change his mind though.'

'I do,' Kyosuke said darkly, 'a couple of idiots from my team joked about it with him.'

'Oh,' Taro said frowning, 'so you don't want him in your team?'

'I never said that,' Kyosuke replied, 'but while we're being honest, Morioka has never even asked me if he could join. The first thing I knew was when you told me about it and it surprised me as much as it did you.'

'I see,' Taro said, 'so, what are you going to do now? I mean, you have won this race.'

'Have I?' Kyosuke said.

'Don't make me say it again,' Taro complained.

Kyosuke remained silent for a bit then, he nodded once and said:

'In that case and since Morioka obviously wants to join, as long as you're definitely cool with it, I'll accept him in to the team.'

'Alright,' Taro said, 'that sounds fair enough. He's a really good guy so take care of him, okay?'

'I will, I promise,' Kyosuke said then, he put his hand forward and said, 'we've got a deal then.'

'We do,' Taro replied and, with a smile on their face, the two team leaders shook their hands.

It was then when they heard Seisuke's RZ-1 coming around the corner and a few instants later, the future doctor stopped his car right next to Taro's X-3, climbing out of it with his well equipped first aid kit in his left hand. Without bothering to close the door, he started running to where Kyosuke and Taro were and sounding just a tad short of breath, he said:

'Aniki, what's wrong?'

'This guy here needs your help,' Kyosuke explained.

Seisuke unhooked the tiny flashlight from the side of the first aid kit and shone it onto the guy, stopping at the maimed leg. Seeing that, he left the bag into the ground and started looking around himself. Finding what he was looking for, he rushed towards it, coming back shortly after with a long, thin and more or less straight branch which had broken away from one of the nearby trees. He spent a couple of seconds making sure it would be resistant enough then, he placed it next to the biker and finally crouched next to him.

'Hey,' he said, 'can you hear me?'

The guy grunted again.

'Okay,' Seisuke said, 'we're going to take you to a hospital but before we can move you there are a few things I need to do. I'll probably hurt you a bit but please do your best to bear it, okay?'

The biker moaned.

'Alright,' Seisuke said taking the moan as a yes. He opened his bag and, out of it, he took a thin orthopaedic collar. He then proceeded to check for any hidden damage around the cervical area and, seeing that everything seemed fine, he placed the collar around the guy's neck, pushing the integral helmet up a bit. Once the neck was secure, he unfastened the helmet and, slowly, he started removing it revealing the face of a fairly young guy who, right now, looked to be in a lot of pain, 'okay,' Seisuke said, 'now you should be able to breathe better.'

'Yeah,' the guy finally spoke.

'How old are you?'

'Twenty two,' the guy replied.

'Are you allergic to any drugs?' Seisuke asked him.

'No.'

'What's your blood group?' Seisuke asked next.

'A+.'

'Alright,' Seisuke said, 'Aniki, Nakazato, I'm going to need your help to free him from under there.'

'Just tell us what to do,' Kyosuke said while Taro nodded.

Seisuke instructed his older brother to take the guy by his shoulders while Taro was in charge of unhooking the leg which wasn't broken making sure he didn't go anywhere near it. Then, while he lifted his body, he counted up to three and they got him out of the guardrail and set him up onto the road's sandy hard shoulder. Once there, Seisuke started the gruelsome work of cutting through the racing suit's thick leather so that he could take a better look at the leg.

'Oh crap, I'm going to be sick,' Taro protested walking away from it.

'Do you need help?' a slightly pale Kyosuke asked his younger brother.

'No,' Seisuke replied sounding a little amused, 'just make sure he stays conscious.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said glad to have a job which didn't involve seeing bits of bones sticking out of flesh.

Seisuke got to work again and, this time, he sprayed the entire leg with some local anaesthetic before he proceeded to clean the wound as well as he could. He then dressed it with a thick padding to protect the broken bone and then he applied the stick he'd found to immobilise the limb. Only then, he started checking that the conditions of the rest of the body.

'Okay,' he said after a while, 'we should be able to take him to the hospital.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke replied.

'Hey,' Seisuke said talking to the biker, 'we're going to take you to my car, alright?'

The guy just nodded as well as he could with the orthopaedic collar.

'Alright,' Seisuke said then, looking at Kyosuke and Taro, he said, 'I'm going to need your help again.'

'Sure,' Kyosuke said.

'Nakazato?'

'Yeah, sure,' the Myogi Devils leader said sounding a little faint.

'Are you okay?' Seisuke asked him, 'you're not going to pass out on me, are you?'

'Idiot,' Taro said still sounding rather weak.

A few minutes later, they had the biker seated as comfortable as possible on the white RZ-1's passenger seat and, after putting his bag away, Seisuke walked around his car together with his older brother.

'Aniki,' he said, 'I'll go by myself to the hospital, you and Nakazato should remove that motorbike from out of the way.'

'Are you sure you want to go on your own?' Kyosuke said.

'Positive,' Seisuke replied, 'just make sure Kaori is okay. Please tell her that I'll be back as soon as I can.'

'I will,' Kyosuke promised.

'By the way,' he added looking at both team leaders, 'was there a winner?'

'Of course,' Taro replied then, before Seisuke could ask, he pointed with his thumb at Kyosuke and said, 'he won.'

'So,' Seisuke said while climbing into his car, 'Morioka's one of us now.'

'It looks like it,' Kyosuke replied.

'Awesome,' Seisuke said then, he hurried to add, 'I mean…'

'It's okay,' Taro interrupted, 'he's a lucky son of a bitch, getting accepted into the Golden Arrows.'

'The Myogi Devils are a pretty cool team too,' Seisuke told him, 'now I better go, the anaesthetic is going to wear off soon.'

'Be careful,' Kyosuke asked him.

'I always am, Aniki,' Seisuke replied.

Two seconds later, the white RZ-1 was speeding back downhill leaving the two team leaders there alone.

'Let's get this thing out of the way,' Kyosuke said pointing at the motorbike.

'Yeah,' Taro agreed.

While they dragged the motorbike towards the side of the road, he added, 'your brother was amazing back there, dealing with that biker. You and your family must be so proud of him.'

'We are,' Kyosuke said, 'I couldn't do what he does.'

'Neither could I,' Taro replied.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said leaving the Yamaha as safely out of the way as possible, 'we should head down too.'

'Yes, we should,' Taro replied.

Soon enough, both drivers were back in their cars driving down to the base.

They got there a few minutes later to see that, somehow, everyone had already found out about the outcome of the race. Seisuke's doing no doubt. Even so, they all waited for the leaders to get out of their cars and, when they did, they watched Taro walking towards Jun Morioka's car. Seeing his team leader, Jun got out of his Toyota MR3 and said:

'Nakazato-san, I…'

'Don't say anything,' Taro said.

He walked to the back of the Mazda and there, he stripped the Myogi Devils stickers himself, making it crystal clear to everyone that Jun Morioka was no longer a member of that team.

'Nakazato-san…'

'From now on,' Taro said speaking out loud, 'you're free to join whichever team you want.'

'Nakazato-san,' Jun said sounding very emotional, 'I…I'm really sorry…I'm so selfish…'

'Yes you are,' Taro agreed smiling at him, 'but it's okay, I was selfish too imposing this race on Takahashi.'

'Nakazato…' Kyosuke started.

'That's right,' Taro continued, 'I wanted to show Morioka that it mattered to me whether he left the team or not but that had nothing to do with the challenge I issued you.'

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked.

'Everyone knows you don't accept challenges in your home course,' Taro said, 'and after seeing you racing on it, I can understand the reason you don't. However, I still wanted to try.'

'Fair enough,' Kyosuke replied.

'Ah!' Taro protested allowing himself to sound a little depressed, 'I should have listened to my uncle when he told me not to race the Takahashi again!'

Everyone started laughing with him and, using that sudden distraction, Kyosuke walked back to his car and doing his best to ignore the rather ugly dent that the front bumper and the lower sector of the bonnet now featured. Instead, he opened the passenger's door and, out of the glove compartment, he took two of the rectangular Golden Arrows decals.

He then made his way back to where Jun Morioka was and said:

'Here.'

'T-t-takahashi-san,' Jun stuttered.

'Welcome to the Golden Arrows,' Kyosuke said.

'Are you sure?' Jun asked.

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied.

With trembling hands, Jun took the stickers and stared at them with the same level of attention and respect one paid to someone else's business cards.

Brushing his hand gently over the topmost one, he bowed at Kyosuke and said:

'I'll do my best, I promise.'

'I know you will,' Kyosuke said, 'also, I have a message from Kazuya for you.'

'You do?' Jun asked.

'He told me,' Kyosuke replied, 'that as soon as he returns from England he wants to race you at the Centre.'

Jun looked a little startled and asked:

'Are you talking about the Takahashi Motorsport Centre?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'as a member of our team, you're welcome to use it whenever you want.'

'Really?'

'Sure,' Kyosuke confirmed.

'In that case,' Jun said, 'you guys are also welcome to my family's onsen whenever you want, I'll ask my father to give you a huge discount.'

The cheering which came from the members of the Golden Arrows made Kyosuke smile then, he said:

'We've got a deal then.'

'We do,' Jun confirmed returning the smile.

Jun became serious again and, glancing at Taro who stood nearby, he bowed deeply towards him and said:

'Thank you very much for everything you and the Devils have done for me all of these years, I'll never forget it.'

'You're welcome,' Taro replied feeling a knot forming on his throat, 'now we're rivals though.'

'Nakazato-san…'

'Which means,' Taro continued, 'that I can challenge you to a race anytime I want.'

'As long as Takahashi-san agrees to it,' Jun said getting back up, 'I'll be ready for it whenever you are.'

'Then let's hope your new team leader will be happy to accommodate yet another selfish request,' Taro said.

'I'm sure we can work something out,' Kyosuke added.

Now we've got this settled,' Yasuo said, 'and since I don't think those bikers will be returning, what do you say if we all do a few runs? I've always liked this beautiful road.'

'You guys go ahead,' Kyosuke said, 'I'll stay here since my car has been damaged a bit.'

Just then, some of the members of the Golden Arrows gasped in horror and ran towards the yellow RZ-1.

Upon seeing the large dent, they all became silent facing the wounded RZ-1 and, some of them even placed their hands on top of it, as if they were trying to make it feel a bit better.

'They do worship that car of yours, huh?' Yasuo said to Kyosuke.

'A little too much,' he replied shaking his head.

'Kyosuke,' he heard Kizuna suggesting, 'I think this is the perfect chance to install that aero kit you wanted.'

'It is,' Kyosuke agreed.

'What?' Yasuo asked, 'you want that car of yours to be even faster?'

'Well…'

'God help us!' Taro exclaimed laughing with the leader of the Nagano Alliance.

After they recovered from the shock of seeing their beloved RZ-1 damaged, Masato and Izawa helped Jun stick his new Golden Arrows decals to the sides of his blue Toyota MR3, filling up the space previously occupied by the Myogi Devils ones while a few other members of all three teams stood nearby watching their work.

'Looks great,' Eiji told them, his girlfriend Yayoi agreeing with him.

'Let's go up,' Masato told Jun, 'it'll be your first run as a member of our team.'

'Sure,' Jun said, 'Ikeda-san, Izawa-san, I'm really sorry for…'

'Forget about that,' Izawa interrupted him.

'From now on,' Masato added, 'just use our first names to call us. Excepting for this guy here,' he said pointing at Izawa, 'he has a very cute name but he seems to hate it.'

'Don't you dare telling him what it is,' Izawa warned Masato.'

'It's okay, I don't need to know,' Jun hurried to say, 'also, if you want, please call me Jun too.'

'We will,' Izawa said.

'Are you guys going to talk all night?' Kei shouted at them.

'You wish!' Masato replied laughing, 'come on, Jun!'

'Coming!' the guy replied smiling happily.

Observing the scene and seeing how quickly most of the Golden Arrows had accepted Jun as one of them, it made Taro think that he had done the right thing letting him go.

All in all, the night ended the best possible way:

The three teams were still on excellent terms with each other, Taro had shown to everyone that he was one of the kindest and most understanding guys out there and, to top it all off, Seisuke had returned a little while later informing everyone that the biker's operation had been successful and that his leg would completely heal in about two to three months.

Seisuke had also explained to them that he had left Ryosuke Takahashi having a lengthy chat with the guy, telling him that those people who had bailed on him in his hour of need weren't his friends and that what they had been doing, bothering other motorists just for the fun of it, was both stupid as well as dangerous. The doctor had also "suggested" to the biker that, instead of wasting his time with motorbikes, he should try and get himself a car because they were a lot more fun, not to mention safer. Ryosuke had proceeded to tell him the story about a teenager rascal who used to have fun scaring people with his motorbike until the day when he got the fright of his life while riding on someone else's car.

That life-changing moment led the rascal to become one of the best rallying drivers of his generation.

'Any reference to actual living people is entirely coincidental,' Seisuke said ending his explanation.

'Naturally,' Kyosuke said giving his younger brother a knowing look.

'Something tells me,' Kizuna added, 'that that guy won't be wanting his motorbike back anytime soon.'

Everyone silently agreed with her and they all wished they could have seen the biker's face while listening to Ryosuke Takahashi's story.

Heck, they just wished they could have listened to the story in the first place!

A full month after that memorable meeting at Mt Akagi, Kyosuke was currently taking a shower at Kizuna's apartment on Monday morning using the time while he washed his hair to think of how challenging it was becoming juggling the management of his now fourteen member team together with the demands of his final year of Automotive Engineering. Thankfully, there were many things which made it all worthwhile. One of them was seeing Jun Morioka and how quickly he had adapted to the Golden Arrows. While they still didn't know the reason why he had failed to make friends among the Myogi Devils, seeing him messing around with Masato, Izawa and everyone else made it clear that Kazuya's judgement had been spot on. What was more, even Junya seemed to be happy to tolerate having Jun around, mainly because thanks to him, Shinji was no longer the team's newbie.

Kyosuke was distracted by his thoughts so much that he almost failed to hear Kizuna's voice over the noise made by the water coming out of the shower's nozzle.

'Kyosuke!' he heard her shouting his name.

'Yes?' he asked.

'Your phone is ringing,' she announced.

Without thinking too much, he said:

'Pick it up, will you please?'

It then took him two and a half seconds to realise his mistake.

Hurrying to get all the soap rinsed off his body, he scrambled out of the shower plate and snatched a towel, wrapping it around his hips, as he rushed outside of the bathroom and towards the tiny living room of Kizuna's apartment. Standing there he found his girlfriend staring at the phone with a vacant expression on her exotic face.

'Kizuna?'

'Kyosuke,' she said without looking at him, 'why would Ayumi-san call you and why did she hang up on me when I answered the call?'

'Er...' Kyosuke hesitated, his mind racing to find a good excuse, 'I don't know,' he ended up saying, 'maybe she made a mistake and just hang up.'

'A mistake?' Kizuna asked now looking at him.

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied, 'it happens, you know?'

The girl looked like she wasn't buying it and that made him take the phone from her hands and say:

'Don't worry about it, I'm going to get dressed and then we can go to class, okay?'

Kizuna gave him a reluctant nod and while he padded into the bedroom, a most unnerving question started creeping its way into her mind:

What was Kyosuke hiding from her?

_To be continued..._


	60. Chapter Fifty Nine

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Fifty Nine_

On Tuesday afternoon and after the four unsuccessful attempt in an hour to get in touch with Kyosuke, a very frustrated Kizuna gave up decided to resort calling Ryoko instead. This time, she was a lot luckier and the phone only rang a couple of times before the younger girl answered it with her usual sweet voice.

'Hello, Ryoko speaking,' she said.

'Hi,' Kizuna said, 'sorry to bother you…'

'It's okay,' Ryoko interrupted her, 'I'm going to a student council meeting so I can't talk for too long.'

'Ah,' Kizuna said, 'in that case I'll go straight to the point: have you seen Kyosuke today?'

'Yes, I have,' Ryoko replied, 'I saw him this morning but you saw him too at the MIT, right?'

'Yes, I did,' Kizuna said, 'I thought we'd have lunch together but he said he had something else to do.'

'Ah, that's right!' Ryoko exclaimed, 'I remember him telling Seisuke something about having to go to Nikko.'

'Nikko?' Kizuna asked fighting to keep an even tone, 'are you sure he said Nikko?'

'Yes,' Ryoko replied sounding a little taken aback, 'Kizuna, is there something wrong?'

'No, of course not,' she hurried to reply, 'did he mention what he was going to do there?'

'No, I'm sorry,' Ryoko replied, 'I didn't really pay much attention to their conversation.'

'It's okay, sweetie,' Kizuna reassured her, 'I'm probably just imagining things.'

'What do you mean?'

'Nothing,' Kizuna replied, 'don't worry.'

'Alright,' Ryoko said, 'I've got to go now but if there's anything I can do, just let me know, okay?'

'Sure,' Kizuna replied, 'thank you and sorry for bothering you while you're at school.'

'Oh, don't worry about that!' Ryoko exclaimed laughing softly, 'see you soon!'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied.

With that, she closed the call and, clutching her phone tightly in her fist, she felt her brain to going blank with panic as it started putting the pieces of a very disturbing puzzle together: the previous morning Kyosuke received a weird call from that Ayumi girl from Irohazaka, he then lied to her about the reason why Ayumi had hung up when hearing her voice instead of Kyosuke's and today, Kyosuke was in Nikko.

'No, no, no,' Kizuna said shaking her head, 'don't go there, Kizuna. Just don't, okay?'

She felt shocked realising she was talking to herself but the picture her brain was painting was even more disturbing. There had to be a reasonable explanation as to why Kyosuke had gone to Nikko to see Ayumi. Maybe the girl needed help with her Mazda RX-8…yet again, she did belong to a team full of petrol-heads, didn't she? Then why hadn't she asked one of them for help? Why did she need to see Kyosuke?

Knowing she would slowly drive herself insane, she decided to take the keys to her car and go for a drive up Mt Akagi instead. Yes, she would clear her head up at the summit. Then she'd try calling Kyosuke again.

Meanwhile, in Shibukawa, Akito was doing something he had not done in a very long time: he was walking home after another boring day at school. He felt a little bummed that on the rare occasion he had the entire afternoon off, Ryoko had to be busy attending some student council meeting. What was even worse was that his father was also busy, he and Keisuke had gone somewhere in Kanagawa to check out a few potential trainers for the Centre and would not be back until at least dinner time.

Akito turned around the corner which led to the street where his family had their house when, frowning a bit, he realised that if he went home now, his mother would probably push him into doing his homework and in so doing, he would have to kiss his time off goodbye. Stopping right where he was, he did a one hundred and eighty degree turn and started walking away from the Fujiwara residence. His new destination: the Fujiwara Tofu Shop.

He hadn't seen his grandfather in nearly a couple of weeks and, let's face it, spending the afternoon with him pawned doing his homework a gazillion times over so, feeling pleased with himself for having had such a good idea, Akito quickened his steps so that he would make it to the old shop as fast as he could and when a few minutes later he arrived there, he found that the door was, as usual, wide open.

'Grandpa!' he shouted stepping into the shop's commercial area, 'Grandpa, it's me, Akito!'

The teenager waited for a bit until he heard steps coming from the living room, then, he saw his grandfather stepping into the shop looking as surprised as anyone had ever seen the legendary ex-racer turned tofu maker.

'What are you doing in here?' Bunta asked him.

'I thought I'd pay you a visit,' Akito replied sounding a little taken aback, 'but if you're busy…'

'Busy?' Bunta asked, 'it's you who should be busy now.'

'Er…' Akito hesitated feeling confused, 'I have the day off today, I…'

'Haven't you spoken to your father?' Bunta then asked him.

'No,' Akito replied, 'not since I left the house this morning, why?'

'So you know nothing,' Bunta commented.

'Granpa,' Akito said, 'why do I feel like I've missed a couple of episodes of some TV drama?'

'Because you have,' Bunta replied, 'don't you have your phone thingy with you?'

'Of course I…' he stopped talking and, putting his hand in the pocket of the trousers of his uniform, he pulled his phone out of it, he then checked its display and there, he saw that he had three missed calls and a message. He also noticed that the thing was still on the silent mode which was compulsory during school hours.

'What's the point of having a portable phone if you don't answer to it?' Bunta asked sounding a bit amused.

Akito very wisely didn't bother trying to find an appropriate response to the question and, instead, he dialled the number to access his voicemail. Then, selecting the appropriate options, he let the message play. It was his father's and what it said was so impossible that Akito listened to it four times before he let himself panic.

'No way,' he breathed.

'Yes way,' Bunta replied now definitely having fun.

'But…no…I can't…no…eh?'

'Kiddo, a blank book makes more sense than you do,' Bunta said laughing at him.

'Grandpa…' Akito said forcing his brain to form some coherent sentence, 'I can't do that!'

'You have to,' Bunta said sobering up, 'it's written on your contract. If your team needs you for a race, you've got to be ready to go whenever they say. And if that other kid has quit, they'll definitely need you.'

'But,' Akito tried again, 'the race in Monaco is THIS weekend, it's too soon!'

'Nope,' Bunta said, 'it's actually a little late,' he added and, glancing at the clock he had hanging from the wall, he said, 'the reason why your father has been trying to get in touch with you is because he's packing up as we speak. You two are scheduled to leave this evening, in fact, your plane takes off in five hours.'

'In what?' Akito asked refusing to believe his ears.

'On second thoughts,' the old man said, 'I better drive you home myself. Your brain is clearly working even slower than usual and you'll probably get lost if I let you walk there. Stay here, I'll go and get my keys.'

While Bunta went to retrieve the keys to the ancient Impreza, Akito fell in a catatonic state and he followed his grandfather towards the car walking in automatic pilot. He even forgot to check the mastery with which the old man made the car do exactly what he wanted. Soon after, Akito found himself in front of his home.

'Come on,' Bunta said, 'you need to get out of the car.'

Akito nodded and was fumbling with the door's handle when he felt that it opened on its own.

Well, in reality it was his very frantic looking father who opened it for him.

'Where have you been?' Takumi nearly screamed at him.

'I…'

'Son,' Bunta said, 'it's getting very late so I think it's better if the kid goes to get changed and gets whatever he'll need for the trip, you'll have several hours on the plane to tell him off properly if you want.'

'That's true,' Takumi agreed then, he said, 'actually, your timing could not be any more perfect.'

'Of course it is,' Bunta said.

'I wonder if you could take us to the airport,' Takumi said ignoring his father's arrogant remark.

'Narita?' Bunta asked and seeing his son's nod, he said, 'I don't know, it's a little far away.'

'I'll pay you a full tank,' Takumi promised.

'Son,' Bunta snorted, 'that's your price, not mine. I'll be satisfied if that kid gets to the podium this weekend.'

'The podium?' Akito asked finally reacting.

'You're still here?' Bunta asked him instead, 'hurry up to get changed before your father has a heart attack, he's not so young anymore.'

Takumi glared at his father before literally pushing his half-stunned son towards the entrance of their home.

'You've got ten minutes,' the man told him, 'your mother has already packed your suitcase but if you see anything else you think you'll need, take it with you, we'll put it inside the case as soon as we get to Narita.'

Somehow, Akito found the stairs to go to his room and, once there, he allowed himself to feel cold with fear. He was about to go to Monaco, the track where not even a year ago Andrea Guelfi had won his first and only GP2 race. Just the thought of racing at the same circuit made his head spin so furiously fast that he thought he would faint. Taking a few deep breaths, he pulled himself together just enough to grab a pair of pants, a Nike t-shirt and one of his newest sweatshirts. Taking his uniform off as quickly as he could, he didn't even stop to consider if the clothes he had selected were a good match. Taking his wallet and his phone, he saw that someone had already taken his passport from the drawer where he usually kept it.

He then spent one more minute taking a look around the room and deciding he didn't anything from it, he just walked out of it and went back downstairs to meet with his father who was now talking to his mother.

'I'm ready,' he announced.

'Okay,' Takumi said, 'your grandfather and I will load the car, say good-bye to your mother and sister.'

'I'll see you soon,' he said to Natsuki.

The woman looked like she was about to burst into tears when she tried to flatten his long bangs a little.

'Be careful and do everything your father says, okay?' she said.

'I will,' Akito promised.

'Bring me lots of presents!' Haruko asked looking up at him.

'I will,' Akito repeated he then patted her on the head and said, 'you'll be a good girl, right?'

'I'm always a good girl,' Haruko said sounding a little offended.

'Of course you are,' Akito said smiling at her.

He then heard his father's voice summoning him and after offering them a little wave, Akito was gone.

That same evening, while Akito and his father were flying across the entire Asian continent on their way to France, Kizuna parked her 350Z just outside the Takahashi's garage and then walked towards the front door and knocking on it, she waited until someone came to let her in. That someone was Ryoko who looked like something had upset her a lot, Kizuna wanted to laugh for she felt the same way, instead, she asked her:

'What's wrong?'

'I'm an idiot,' Ryoko replied.

'Why?' Kizuna asked stepping into the house.

'I should have quit that stupid student council ages ago,' the girl said.

'Ryoko…'

'If I had,' she continued, 'I would have seen Akito this afternoon and now, he's on his way to France!'

'What?' Kizuna gasped.

'That's right,' Ryoko said, 'he called me from the airport an hour ago to tell me that Go-san has quit the team and Tanaka-san asked him to step in. Now they are on their way to Monaco for this weekend's race.'

'Oh wow,' Kizuna said.

'Yeah,' Ryoko agreed, 'I could have seen him and instead I was at that stupid meeting!'

'Hey, it's not your fault,' Kizuna tried to reason with her, 'there was no way you could have known.'

Ryoko just shook her head and then she just walked back into the living room leaving Kizuna to remove her shoes on her own. Conversely, she felt a little relieved that she wasn't going to be the only person in a bad mood that evening and when she donned her slippers to follow Ryoko, she even managed to smile when she saw that together with the girl and her mother, she also saw Kyosuke looking like he didn't have a care in the world. In fact, the smile he offered her was the one he always had when something had gone according to plan.

'Hi,' he greeted her.

'Hello,' she forced herself to say then, to Kyoko, she bowed a little and said, 'good evening, Kyoko-san.'

'Good evening, sweetie,' the woman replied, 'did you hear about Akito?'

'Yes, I did,' Kizuna replied refusing to sit down, 'Ryoko just told me.'

'Isn't it amazing?' Kyoko said, 'he's only seventeen and he's going to debut in GP2!'

'It is amazing,' Kizuna agreed then, deciding that postponing the inevitable was unwise, she looked at Kyosuke and trying to sound calm and rational, she said, 'can I have a word with you? In private, if possible.'

'S-sure,' Kyosuke replied only stuttering very slightly.

He followed her out of the room leaving mother and daughter wondering what had happened.

'What's up?' Kyosuke asked her once they were on their own in the house's huge kitchen.

'I tried calling you, several times,' she said, 'where have you been all afternoon?'

'Oh,' Kyosuke gasped then, he replied a little too quickly, 'I went to do some research.'

'Research?' Kizuna asked not bothering to mask her disbelief.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied nevertheless, 'I had to investigate something so I went to…'

'Nikko,' Kizuna supplied for him.

His startled look made her feel a little sick.

'Yes,' he replied recovering fast.

'You went to Irohazaka,' it wasn't a question.

'That's right,' Kyosuke said, 'I went there to investigate something.'

'To investigate what?' Kizuna nearly demanded.

'I can't tell you,' was Kyosuke's alarming reply.

Hearing that he had secrets from her took her breath away so badly she just couldn't speak.

'Please, just trust me with this, okay?' Kyosuke asked her with nonchalance.

Again, she couldn't utter a single word.

'I take that as a yes,' Kyosuke said.

With this, he just left her there, standing in the kitchen feeling like an idiot.

By the time she reacted and Kizuna moved to follow Kyosuke so that she could get a proper explanation for his recent odd behaviour, she found that Seisuke and Kaori had joined Ryoko and her mother in the living room, the two had just returned from watching a movie and were catching up on the latest news. Any other explanation, Kizuna decided, would have to wait.

'Aniki!' Seisuke exclaimed seeing his brother entering the room, 'it's awesome, Akito's debuting in GP2!'

'I know,' a perfectly calm Kyosuke said.

'I can't wait to see him in action!' Seisuke said talking to everyone who would listen.

Soon, the two brothers engaged in an in-depth conversation about the current standings of the GP2 championship and, getting a little carried away, they started speculating about which of the upcoming races would be Akito's maiden GP2 victory. A very worried Kizuna decided to sit down next to Kyosuke and instead of taking part in a discussion which should have interested a great deal, she just tried to persuade herself that Kyosuke would never do anything as low as cheating on her and that if he asked her to trust him, she would just have to.

A couple of days later, on Thursday morning, Western European Time, Akito woke up in the luxurious hotel twin room Tanaka-san had booked for him and his father. They were staying at the Port Palace Hotel which was right in the middle of the actual circuit and how had Tanaka-san managed to get rooms in such a posh place was something Akito preferred not to know. Also because, right now, his brain was busy enough just trying to get used to being in Monaco.

'Good morning son,' Takumi said yawning while he stretched on his own bed.

'Hey,' was all that Akito managed to say.

'We must hurry,' Takumi said glancing at his watch, 'we've got to meet with the team in twenty minutes.'

'Alright,' Akito replied.

He jumped off of the stupidly high bed and padded to the bathroom where he splashed some cold water on his face before cleaning his teeth. Then, not bothering with taking a proper shower, he just put on the white t-shirt he usually wore under his racing suit, donned a pair of new jeans his mother had packed for him and he said:

'I'm done.'

Predictably, his father took a little longer to be ready but they did get down to the hotel's hall on time.

'Good morning,' Tanaka-san said smiling at them, 'I trust you two slept well.'

'Of course,' Takumi replied while Akito just nodded, 'the room is perfect.'

'I'm glad to hear that,' the Team Manager said then, indicating the guy next to him, he added, 'I think you've briefly met before but, in case you haven't, this is Ruben Fernandez, you two will be team mates.'

'Hello Ruben-san,' Akito said.

'Hello,' Ruben replied in his far from perfect Japanese, 'long time no see.'

'Indeed,' Akito agreed.

While he had seen Jito Go practically every week, Ruben didn't live full time in Japan, preferring to spend as much time as he could in his home in Valencia, Spain. He'd even travelled straight to Monaco from that city.

'Come on,' Tanaka-san said taking him out of his reverie, 'we've got a lot to do today.'

Akito soon realised that Tanaka-san had not been kidding when he warned them about the amount of things they had to do. To begin with, right after breakfast, they left the hotel to go to the building the FIA had set up as their headquarters for the race, Akito felt a little freaked out when he realised that the F1 race was the main course of a very busy weekend and soon, he simply didn't have enough eyes to look around himself.

'Remember to breathe,' he heard his father whispering to him.

'Yeah,' Akito replied, too stunned to get offended.

Inside the building, Tanaka-san took them to meet a couple of the officials in charge of all he races that weekend. Akito was introduced to them in English and the two middle aged men just offered him a slightly patronising smile, the same one Akito had seen countless of other times during his first races in F3.

'Alright,' Tanaka-san said, 'now that I've got my two drivers checked in for the race, we'll all go and talk to the press. After that we have a couple of pre-race briefings and then we'll join the technical staff at the box to get ready for the afternoon practice. Remember to wear your pass visible at all times, okay?'

'Yes, sir,' Akito replied.

'Good,' the Team Manager said.

How he managed to make it through the day was nothing short of a miracle but when that evening Akito and his father returned to their room, he felt like instead of driving his GP2 car, he felt like the car had been the one driving over him. He was so tired that when he dropped himself onto his bed, still fully dressed, he fell asleep immediately. Takumi smiled at his son softly and with a resigned sigh, he started removing Akito's jeans. With that done, he grabbed one of the fluffy spare blankets and covered his son with it.

'Good night, son,' Takumi muttered.

On Saturday afternoon and with Akito having qualified sixth in his first GP2 qualifying session yet, the entire Golden Arrows gathered at the Centre to celebrate Kizuna's twenty first birthday while watching Akito's first ever GP2 race. Kyosuke's odd behaviour had not repeated itself and Kizuna was beginning to convince herself that whatever had happened with him, it was all in the past and, with that decided, she allowed herself to enjoy her birthday as well as watching that little racing genius debuting in the international racing scene.

'Hey!' Jun exclaimed at the TV where they saw Akito being interviewed, 'that's him! That's Fujiwara-kun!'

'Calm down,' Masato laughed, 'it's not like you've never seen him before.'

'It's the first time I see him on TV after having met him in person,' Jun countered.

'True that,' Masato agreed.

'Be quiet,' Seisuke told them.

'Fujiwara-kun,' the journalist said, 'what are your first impressions of the car on this very special circuit?'

Akito looked like he tried to think of a smart enough answer then, he said:

'Well, this is Monaco, regardless of what you drive, it's a great track, one that deserves a lot of respect.'

'Good answer,' Kyosuke said nodding his approval.

'What do you think of the car?' the journalist asked next.

'It's perfect,' Akito replied, 'the technical staff have all done a fantastic job and I'm really grateful to them.'

'What about your team mate?' the journalist said, 'he's pretty quick, isn't he?'

'He is,' Akito admitted calmly, 'but that will only push me to try and be quicker.'

'Guys,' Eiji said, 'are you sure he hasn't done this before?'

'Not in GP2, he hasn't,' Seisuke laughed, 'but that little punk is getting better at handling the press.'

'Well,' Kizuna reasoned, 'he has to, otherwise those journalists will eat him alive.'

'Please don't say that,' Ryoko begged her looking a little anguished.

'He'll be fine,' Kyosuke reassured her, 'Akito's no longer a scared fifteen year old boy.'

A couple of hours later and while in Japan the sun was beginning to set, the Golden Arrows watched Akito climbing into the PIAA-Tanaka GP2 car. The pattern in which the single-seater was painted was the same as the F3 version, with the only difference that the GP2 car had quite a few more sponsors than the F3 one.

Also, unlike in F3, Akito now had a team mate.

'They're starting,' Ryoko said with a tiny voice.

'He's called you, right?' Kizuna asked her.

'Yes,' Ryoko replied, her eyes glued to the screen.

'Did he sound nervous?' Seisuke asked her.

'No,' Ryoko replied this time looking at her cousin, 'in fact, he sounded way too calm.'

'That punk,' Seisuke laughed.

No one had the time to add anything else because, just then, the commentator began by giving the starting order. On pole position, they had one of the two Arden Racing cars followed by the red and white Super Nova, then they had the two Campos Racing cars and, just ahead of Akito, they saw the red ADDAX Team car that had been the team in which Andrea Guelfi had entered his too few GP2 races. Right now, there was some Swedish guy racing in his place. Akito's team mate was two places behind him, in eighth position.

'I can't believe he's out-qualified his own team mate,' Kei commented.

'What did you expect?' Izawa challenged him.

'I thought he'd do okay,' Kei admitted, 'but not that well.'

'Then you know nothing of our little racing genius,' Masato laughed at him.

If Akito had heard that last remark, he would have probably failed to start as well as he did: at the green lights he kept his head cold and, instead of being pushed out of the way by the second of the Arden Racing cars, Akito managed to stay sixth. At the first corner he was close to overtaking the ADDAX Team's racer, but the risk of running out of track was too high so, playing it safe, he decided to stay put.

The race went on without too many changes other than a small crash without any consequences to the other drivers and a couple of cars the drivers of which saw themselves forced to retire: one of them with a broken gearbox, the other with some hydraulics failure. Twelve laps into the race, Akito was still in sixth place when his team signalled for him to get back in the pitlane to do the one pitstop they would do to his car.

'Oh crap,' Eiji said, 'he's going to lose positions.'

'He will,' Kyosuke agreed, 'but so will everyone else when they'll get in.'

Just as he said, Akito did re-join the race in thirteenth position but, four laps later, he was back to his sixth place. In front of him, he now had his own team mate Ruben who oddly enough managed to gain places.

Monaco wasn't a circuit which allowed for easy overtaking so for the following six laps, Akito remained stuck behind Ruben's car but judging by the times both cars were making, everyone saw that Akito was a little faster. They covered one more lap and just as they all thought that Akito would try to do something to overtake his team mate, they saw a lot of smoke coming out of Ruben's car. His engine had given up.

'No way…' the Golden Arrows heard Ryoko whispering.

With a mix of happiness and incredulity, they saw Akito dodging Ruben's car as it started slowing down. Just then, the driver who was now ahead of Akito, that Swedish driver from the ADDAX Team, made a small mistake which sent him a little too wide around La Rascasse corner. They watched as Akito, obviously not thinking twice about it, just pushed his single-seater into the impossibly narrow space, exiting the corner just in front of the ADDAX Team's car. Akito was now up to fourth place with just five more laps to go.

Fuelled by this unexpected success, Akito went on pursue of the Arden Racing car which was in third position catching up with him just as they started their penultimate lap. Both cars went around Sainte Devote and along the Beau Rivage straight covering the Massenet and Casino corners literally stuck to each other. Then, just as they got to the short straight before Mirabeau Haute, Akito dared a wild looking move which put his car level with the Arden Racing one. Fighting the urge to close their eyes, the Golden Arrows watched as Akito stole the third position arriving at the Grand Hotel Hairpin ahead of the Arden Racing car.

'Wow, he's mental,' Jun said trying to catch his breath.

The guy found he needed the extra oxygen when he saw the way Akito covered the rest lap and a half which separated him from the chequered flag: cruising around the track at such high speed that in his very last one, he even set the race's fastest lap. The room was immediately filled with a thunderous cheer from quite a few of the Golden Arrows members while poor Ryoko was too emotional to even try to speak.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said with tears in his eyes, 'he's done it again, that punk's done it again!'

'Third place and fastest lap,' Kyosuke said.

'In his first race ever,' Kizuna finished.

'Un-freaking-believable,' Masato and Izawa chanted together.

The celebrations lasted all the way through that first podium ceremony in which they saw Akito climbing into the third step, looking like he had a hard time believing that this was happening to him. He smiled shyly at the VIP which gave him the small but very important trophy: it was his first one as a GP2 racer.

'Okay guys,' Kyosuke said after the broadcast had finished and as the TV station got ready for the F1 coverage.

'What is it?' Kizuna asked.

'We must get going,' Kyosuke announced.

'Going?' Ryoko said voicing the very question Kizuna was about to ask.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'there's still one more thing we need to do to finish Kizuna's birthday in style.'

Refusing to elaborate, he just left the room expecting everyone to follow him. Needless to say, they all did. They also got in their cars and then, they followed their leader out of the parking area and along the provincial road which connected the Gunma Prefecture with the Tochigi one. Kizuna felt very confused seeing that they were heading towards Nikko and, for a moment there, she thought they were going to go to Irohazaka when, instead, they headed towards the Kasuo Pass on the Provincial Route 15.

They drove on that particular road all the way to the intersection with the Route 58 and, just there, on a small asphalted area at the corner where both roads met, illuminated by just a couple of street lights, Kizuna saw a number of cars parked there. She narrowed her eyes when, getting a bit closer, she recognised the red SE3P driven by Ayumi from Irohazaka but what really left her speechless was seeing the car parked next to the Mazda: a very shiny, silver Nissan 370Z.

'What's the meaning of this?' Kizuna asked Kyosuke via their private frequency.

'What do you think it is?' Kyosuke asked her.

'No idea,' Kizuna said not really feeling in the mood for games.

'It's your second birthday present,' Kyosuke said, 'I thought you'd like to race against that car.'

'What?' Kizuna gasped, 'I…you…you organised all of this?'

'Affirmative,' Kyosuke admitted, 'so, happy birthday?'

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'very happy.'

_To be continued…_


	61. Chapter Sixty

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Sixty_

Fitting all fourteen of the Golden Arrows cars in such a small area was a little challenging but with a bit of effort, they all managed to park and climb out of their rides within a reasonably short amount of time.

'Welcome to the Kasuo Pass,' Ayumi said greeting the group.

'Thank you,' Kyosuke replied.

'At long last,' Ayumi said looking at Kizuna, 'we meet in a happy occasion.'

'Excuse me?' Kizuna said.

'Isn't it your birthday today?' Ayumi asked.

'Ah, yes, it is,' Kizuna replied.

'Like I said, it's a happy occasion so maybe this time things will end without tears or people getting slapped,' Kizuna remained mute too embarrassed to talk, 'now we're all here,' Ayumi continued, 'I think I'll introduce you to the owner of that beautiful machine, her name is Aoi Michiru and she's a very good friend of mine.'

'Hi,' a short girl with very curly hair said, 'please call me Mimi, everyone does.'

'Hi,' Kizuna replied, 'my name is Ethridge Kizuna, it's nice to meet you, Mimi.'

'Ayu tells me you're quite the racer,' Mimi said, 'even better than she is.'

'I don't know about that…'

'She is,' Ayumi intervened, 'don't let her modesty fool you, she is a member of the Golden Arrows after all.'

Once again, Kizuna decided to remain silent.

'Well,' Mimi said, 'go easy on me, since I just got that car, I'm not very familiar with it yet.'

'You're not that bad,' Ayumi defended her, 'and that car of yours is fast enough, believe me.'

'I'm sure we'll have a good race,' Kizuna said.

'Yes,' Mimi agreed, 'let's have a good race.'

Kizuna shook hands with the girl and just then it was decided to let the two racers complete a few runs up and down the Kasuo Pass. They also agreed to start the race at ten o'clock, in about less than an hour.

'Don't underestimate her,' Kyosuke whispered as Kizuna climbed into her car, 'I saw her driving Ayumi-chan's car in Irohazaka and she was a decent driver. Also, her Z34 is more powerful than your Z33 so, if she overtakes you, it'll be difficult for you to get back ahead.'

'Alright,' Kizuna replied.

'One more thing,' Kyosuke continued, 'during these runs, try and find the right balance so that you gather enough momentum for the steeper section. You'll understand what I mean after you've had a first go.'

'Sure,' Kizuna said then, something made her add, 'is this what you've been doing during the past week?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke admitted, 'I wanted to be sure this pass was fun but safe enough, I didn't want to find another Shomaru Pass if you were going to race someone.'

'Who is she by the way?' Kizuna asked.

'Just a friend of Ayumi-chan,' Kyosuke replied, 'I told a few people that I was looking for a racer who owned a 370Z since I thought it'd be a good idea for you to measure your 350Z against its bigger sister. Ayumi-chan happened to know that one of her girlfriends had just bought one and was kind enough to call me.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said sounding a little dry.

'Kizuna?' Kyosuke asked her frowning a little, 'I hope you didn't…no, you couldn't think that…'

'Of course not,' Kizuna lied, 'I just found it odd that you were doing stuff without telling me, that's all.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke humoured her looking rather pleased, 'you better go now, Michiru-chan's already left.'

Driving out of the narrow parking space, Kizuna drove her 350Z back onto the road, turning right in order to follow Mimi's 370Z. The first part of the Kasuo Pass was fairly easy and gentle, it was just a more or less straight section of flat road which got interrupted by the occasional sharp corner. They were the only reason why Kizuna didn't find the first half of the pass downright boring. However, as she reached the mid-point of the course, things started getting interesting.

Just there, ahead of her, she saw that the road ceased being flat and, all of a sudden, it became as steep as the one in Mt Akagi, not only that but, as she started driving up, she noticed that there was an impressive succession of hairpins second only to the one in Irohazaka, it was little wonder Mimi trained in the infamous pass in Nikko when her own home course was just as intricate. Eleven consecutive hairpins later, Kizuna was in love with the Kasuo Pass.

'This road is so much fun!' she said talking to no one in particular.

'I knew you'd like it,' Kyosuke replied using his softest tone.

'Kyosuke,' she then said while she saw Mimi's car right ahead of her, 'this is the best birthday present ever.'

'I'm glad you liked it,' he replied.

'I love it,' she corrected, 'and I love you.'

Kyosuke let out a soft chuckle and said:

'Me too.'

'I'm heading back down now,' Kizuna said, 'I'll see you in a few minutes.'

At ten o'clock sharp, Kizuna and Mimi lined their Nissan next to each other waiting for the moment in which Ayumi received word from the people she had asked to monitor the road telling her that everything was fine.

'Alright,' she said once she got the report, 'we're ready when you are.'

'I'm ready,' Mimi replied.

'I'm good too,' Kizuna added.

'Okay,' Ayumi said then, she glanced at Kyosuke and said, 'if you don't mind, I'll do the countdown.'

'Not at all,' Kyosuke replied, 'please go ahead.'

With Ayumi now standing in front of the two cars, the members of the Golden Arrows and the few people who had started gathering there during the course of the evening got ready to witness the start of a very rare all-female race. They were so excited about that that they nearly forgot about the fact that the two girls were also racing each other with very similar machines. Granted, Kizuna's car was a bit older and less powerful but since the 370Z had been built onto the same platform, it could be seen as just an upgrade.

'Alright,' Ayumi said lifting both of her arms and with one hand, she started the countdown, 'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

Kizuna floored the pedal forcing her 350Z to take off as fast as possible and even from the inside of her car she could smell the burnt rubber from the tyres. Ignoring that, she pushed the car to near it's limits trying to get ahead of Mimi's 370Z but, in spite of all her efforts, Kizuna saw the silver car darting past her own.

'Crap,' she muttered.

She had expected Mimi's car to be a little faster but seeing it speeding away came as a bit of a shock. But the race was long, Kizuna thought trying to calm down, they had decided to drive up and after the last of the consecutive hairpins, they were supposed to turn round and head back down so she still had plenty of time.

Following Mimi into the first of the very few corners which interrupted the more or less straight sector, she had the impression that something was odd. Trying to get closer to the 370Z, Kizuna decided to pay more attention to Mimi's driving style and, with that, she waited until they reached a wide and fast left-hander.

There, she noticed that the braking lights came on a little too soon and that they came and went a couple of times before Mimi let go of the brake to open the throttle. That made Kizuna wonder if this was something the girl did to try and confuse her or…maybe it was just that Mimi had poor control over the braking pedal.

Plan for the better, prepare for the worse.

That was what Kyosuke always told her and, for this reason, she decided that if Mimi was using a tactic, she just had to concentrate on her own pedal work without letting Mimi's influence it. If, on the contrary, Mimi had problems keeping a stable pressure onto the braking pedal, then it was all the better for Kizuna.

Either way, she had to start thinking of how to overtake the Z34 before they got to the second half of the course. Kizuna had seen that there were quite a few places in which overtaking wasn't impossible. The main problem for her was the fact that, leaving braking issues aside, Mimi's car was still more powerful than hers.

Kizuna followed Mimi along a quick succession of gentle turns which led to a long uninterrupted straight and, as the two cars entered that, Kizuna veered to the inside of the road. She then pressed the accelerator all the way down and then, she just hoped that the Z33's engine would give her enough power to pass Mimi.

She did level with the girl but when they were three quarters of the way through the straight, Mimi started accelerating again. Kizuna was about to give up when she saw that there was a left-hander right ahead of them. It was now or never: if Mimi's braking issues were a trick, Kizuna would lose the gamble, but if they weren't…

They got to the corner before she could finish that thought and, as they had to slow down to enter the turn, she saw that Mimi decelerated in her usual erratic manner and thanks to her own much more refined use of the brake, Kizuna managed to get her 350Z ahead of its bigger sister then, she prepared herself for an attack which never came. Exiting the turn, Kizuna found that Mimi had decided to stay behind her.

Both racers maintained their positions all the way to the start of the steep sector and while Kizuna went around the first of the eleven hairpins, she started thinking of which strategy would Mimi use to overtake her there. If she had to be honest, she hadn't been able to figure out any spot in which one could easily pass the opponent so, unless Mimi knew something she didn't, the only point in which Mimi could attempt to overtake Kizuna would be at the end of the road, using the moment in which both cars would turn around.

Eight hairpins later, Kizuna had just exited the eighth one and was heading towards the wide left-hander which connected the eighth hairpin to the ninth one when, glancing at the wing mirror, she saw that Mimi had started veering towards the outside of the corner. Not thinking twice, Kizuna too moved her car and, with it, she hoped to block Mimi's overtaking attempt.

She did but, because of the sudden manoeuvre, Kizuna found herself completely off the ideal racing line to enter the ninth hairpin and that forced her to apply a couple of corrections to her trajectory, making her waste a few precious instants. Mimi used up those moments wisely and as they entered to the hairpin, both cars were literally glued to each other. Breathing deeply a couple of times, Kizuna made her mind up.

Right after exiting the eleventh and final hairpin, she dashed towards the point they would use to turn around and, just there, she did a handbrake drift which set her car facing the opposite direction then, not wanting to lose momentum, she floored the accelerator driving past a very startled Mimi.

The rest of the race had very little story, being downhill, it was a piece of cake to Kizuna who in the two years she'd been racing for the Golden Arrows had become quite the downhill specialist. That, together with the fact that Mimi's braking problems became even more pronounced while fighting gravity, it meant that Kizuna's 350Z reached the bottom of the pass with a very respectable ten second lead over Mimi's 370Z.

'YES!' she screamed happily.

'Well done,' she heard Kyosuke's voice through the radio.

Stopping right in the middle of the other cars, Kizuna got out of hers to see the smiling faces of her team mates. Even Ayumi seemed pleased of what they had witnessed and after complimenting Kizuna for the win, she went to talk to Mimi who, funnily enough, didn't really look very upset by her loss.

'It's okay,' she told Ayumi, 'I know I still have a lot of work to do.'

'Excuse me,' Kizuna said as tactfully as possible, 'I'm not sure if you'd like to hear it but, I might have a tip for you.'

'Oh,' Mimi gasped, 'I definitely want to hear it.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said, 'if the braking pedal in your car is anything like in mine, you want to be a little harsher on it.'

'What do you mean?' Mimi asked.

'When I first got my car,' Kizuna explained, 'I too found it difficult to figure out by how much I had to press the pedal to make it slow down as much as I wanted to but, once I did, I saw that if I was too gentle with the pedal, the car's speed would just stutter and it would make me lose a lot of time.'

'Harsher, you say,' Mimi said looking pensive.

'Yes,' Kizuna confirmed then, she hurried to add, 'it worked for me but, it might not work for you…I…'

'I'll try that,' Mimi interrupted her then, she gave her a brilliant smile and said, 'thanks a lot!'

'You're more than welcome,' Kizuna replied feeling a little embarrassed.

'You know,' Ayumi intervened this time talking to Kyosuke, 'now I see the reason you like her so much.'

Everyone started laughing when an already self-conscious Kizuna became as red as a pepperoni. Taking pity on her, Kyosuke tried to remove the focus of the attention off her by suggesting to the Golden Arrows to have a go at the pass. It worked and, a few moments later, they were all busy falling in love with the road.

A couple of days after their return from Monaco, Akito and his father were on their way to the PIAA-Tanaka offices for the usual post-race meeting. Akito knew that, this time, Ruben would also be there and he was actually looking forward to seeing his team mate. During the long flight back from Europe, Akito and Ruben had sat next to each other and, in spite of Ruben's self-taught Japanese, they still had a good conversation.

Akito learned that the nineteen year old also came from a family of petrol-heads: his father had won the Spanish Rallying title a few years before and one of his uncles had entered the Paris-Dakar on a truck. He had an older sister who worked for a MotoGP team and Ruben's own dream was to one day, compete in IRL.

'Not F1?' Akito had asked him.

'Nope,' Ruben had replied, 'I like Indy Racing League.'

Ruben was also quite the accomplished chef and he had told Akito that if he ever travelled to Valencia, he had to visit his house. Ruben promised to cook for him the best paella he would ever eat in his entire life.

Akito smiled remembering how Ruben had proceeded to explain with excruciating detail the system he used to make the traditional Valencian dish. Akito had ended up getting so hungry he had to ask the hostess if she could please bring him some munchies. Happily, the rest of their conversation steered away from food.

'Oh no,' he heard his father say returning him to present day.

'What?' Akito asked.

'That,' Takumi replied.

At the parking area next to the PIAA-Tanaka offices, they saw Ruben being confronted by an angry Jito.

'Stay in the car,' Takumi ordered his son after stopping just outside the car park.

'Dad,' Akito said, 'you can't protect me forever, this is my team and I need to know what's happening.'

Takumi looked at his son and, shaking his head, he said:

'I don't think that's a good idea.'

'You're probably right,' Akito accepted, 'but I still need to do this.'

Without thinking twice, Akito got out of the car and, rushing into the car park, he heard Jito's dry laughter.

'You're not so great, are you?' the twenty one year old said, 'you got out-qualified by just a little kid!'

'Hey,' Akito said, 'the "little kid" is right here.'

'Akito…' Ruben started.

'What's going on here?' Tanaka-san said at long last coming out of his office, 'you! What are you…'

'You made a mistake!' Jito shouted at the Team Manager, 'you got rid of the wrong driver.'

'I didn't get rid of anyone,' Tanaka-san said calmly, 'you quit the team yourself, remember?'

'You didn't give me any choice!' Jito said.

'I did,' Tanaka-san countered, 'in fact, I gave you several.'

'Not the one I wanted,' Jito said.

'Ruben-kun is a great driver,' Tanaka-san said, 'firing him was out of the question.'

'Great driver my ass,' Jito sneered, 'that kid out-qualified him in Monaco, and he didn't even finish the race.'

'That wasn't his fault!' Akito intervened.

'It was,' Ruben countered, 'I pushed too much. You better position, I angry.'

'See?' Jito said triumphantly, 'that pissed you off, didn't it?'

'Yes,' Ruben admitted, 'I angry because slower. I faster next race.'

'You…'

'Akito said it well,' Ruben continued this time smiling at Akito, 'if team mate quick, I must be quicker.'

'That's right,' Tanaka-san said nodding his approval.

'Your team mate is always your greatest rival,' Akito added talking to Jito, 'everyone knows that.'

The older man refused to reply feeling mortally offended that a little kid dared to give him a moral lesson.

'You're right,' Ruben said to Akito, 'you biggest rival for me.'

'But you two are still team mates,' Tanaka-san reminded them, 'never forget that, okay?'

'Never,' both Akito and Ruben replied in astonishing synchrony.

That, of course, made them look at each other and then they both started laughing.

'As you can see,' Tanaka-san said to Jito, 'they already have a better relationship than you two ever did.'

'This is not the end of it!' Jito shouted while he ran towards his car.

'No, you're right,' Tanaka-san said coolly, 'this is just the beginning.'

It was indeed the beginning of a great relationship and even though Akito didn't quite manage to equal the excellent result achieved in Monaco, the PIAA-Tanaka team consistently finished within the top ten in the six races which had taken place since. Ruben had the pleasure of having a podium finish in his home race in the street circuit of Valencia while Akito's best result had been three fourth places in Silverstone, Hockenheim and at the Hungaroring and was already building quite the reputation as this year's super-rookie.

Late one evening, Kyosuke was lying on top of his bed thinking about his best friend's last race in Hungary. In spite of being the beginning of August, it was pouring cats and dogs during the race and while everyone did their best to play it safe, the way Akito kept on driving his GP2 car was as though as he wasn't even bothered by the rain.

Kyosuke tried to remember all the wet races he'd seen Akito competing in and he realised that whenever it rained, Akito always seemed to do even better than usual. Maybe it wasn't entirely coincidental, he thought, after all, he had trained himself in all sorts of weather conditions so a little rain would not scare him at all.

Following that thought reminded Kyosuke of something he'd heard during the last gathering the Golden Arrows had had in Mt Usui with the Nagano Alliance alone for the Myogi Devils had gone to race another team in the Momiji Lane. Kyosuke had been talking to Kizuna about something she wanted to do to her car when he heard a few people from the galleries pointing at him whispering furiously.

At first he did his best to ignore it but then, he heard something which made his heart skip a beat. They seemed to be discussing some rumour that wanted the Golden Arrows leader racing some GP2 driver. To his relief, they never mentioned Akito's name but just the fact that they knew so much scared Kyosuke a lot.

What if the FIA found out about this race?

He definitely needed to stop these rumours or else, he would not be able to race Akito in three months time.

'Three months?' Kyosuke said getting up from his bed so suddenly he almost felt dizzy.

With mounting panic, he suddenly remembered something that he had completely forgotten about.

Yes, he had a lot of experience in terms of street racing. In fact, other than one impromptu race three years before against that old Civic and that stupid thing with Junya that happened last year, Akito had never raced anyone else on the streets and knowing that fact, somehow, had given Kyosuke a false sense of security and that had made him make a huge miscalculation, one he had every intention to fix right now.

Jumping off his bed, he raced towards the door and then he walked towards the one in Seisuke's room.

Hoping his brother would still be awake, he knocked on it and waited for the, 'come in,' which followed.

'Seisuke,' he said not even bothering to greet him, 'I need your help.'

'Okay,' Seisuke replied putting the book he was reading down onto the table, 'what's up?'

'Come on,' Kyosuke said, 'let's go for a drive.'

'Alright,' Seisuke replied and, getting up from his beloved leather chair, he grabbed his phone, wallet and the key to his RZ-1 following his older brother down to the garage feeling amused to see him in the middle of a rare spontaneous act, 'okay,' he said once they were standing next to their Mazda, 'where are we going?'

'Mt Akina,' Kyosuke announced.

'Why?' Seisuke asked.

'I'll tell you once we get there,' Kyosuke replied.

Knowing better than to argue, Seisuke just got onboard his RZ-1, following Kyosuke's one outside the family's garage. The two brothers drove all the way from Maebashi to the city of Shibukawa and arrived at the base of the famous Mt Akina Pass when the clock at the car's dashboard had just gone past midnight.

'Okay,' Seisuke said getting out of his car, 'what are we doing in here?'

'Can you do me a favour?' Kyosuke asked talking to him over the roof of his car.

'Sure,' Seisuke replied still trying to humour his older brother.

'Go up to the summit,' Kyosuke said, 'then, once you're at the starting point, let me know and start driving downhill as fast you can. I'll be timing you so make sure you do go as fast as possible, okay?'

'Aniki…'

'Seisuke, I really need you to do me this favour,' Kyosuke insisted.

'Alright,' Seisuke said.

Climbing back into his car, he started realising the reason why they were there but, instead of saying anything, he just drove back onto the road and when a few minutes later he reached the old aerial tower, he drove into one of the two sides of the road which were still separated from the main one by two long lines of rusty guardrails. He then turned round and once he was in position, he told Kyosuke over the radio:

'Okay, I'm ready, start timing...now!'

Taking off as fast as the RZ-1's rotary would go, Seisuke launched his car down Mt Akina going so quick that he barely had the time to think of how beautiful that road was. The fast corners, the short and demanding straights, those infamous five consecutive hairpins and the always imposing view of the mountain made this one of the greatest drives around the whole of the Kanto area. It was also the Fujiwara's private playground.

As soon as he made it to the bottom, he literally jumped out of his car to go and check his time.

'How did I do?' he asked his brother.

'I'm not sure yet,' Kyosuke replied, he handed the stopwatch to Seisuke and said, 'now it's my turn.'

'Okay,' Seisuke said.

A few minutes later, Kyosuke warned him that he was about to have his go and some more minutes after that, Seisuke first heard then saw his older brother's yellow RZ-1. Waiting until it crossed the imaginary finish line, the future doctor pressed the stop button and, seeing Kyosuke's time, he frowned visibly.

'How did I…'

'This is terrible,' a very serious Seisuke interrupted him.

'Let me see that,' Kyosuke ordered.

'No,' Seisuke said pressing the button again to zero the counter, 'you don't want to see it.'

'Seisuke…'

'Aniki,' he said, 'you're in big trouble.'

'How big?' Kyosuke asked.

'Huge,' Seisuke replied, 'think Titanic, think…'

'Alright, I get it,' Kyosuke stopped him now sounding annoyed.

'No, you don't,' Seisuke countered, 'Aniki, you were just a hair faster than I was. Akito has been driving on this pass for years with his father's monster of a car and his grandfather's terrifying Impreza. While I'm sure he hasn't done it yet, he must be getting pretty close to Takumi-san's downhill record. Can you imagine what he's going to do once he has his own, brand new car?'

Kyosuke felt like he'd just been punched.

'Aniki,' Seisuke continued, 'you've got a lot of work to do if you hope to beat Akito here.'

'I know,' he somehow managed to say.

'While we're at it,' Seisuke said, 'I would like you to do me a favour.'

'What is it?' a very subdued Kyosuke asked him.

'Can you help me organise a secret race?' Seisuke asked.

'Why secret?' Kyosuke asked, 'who are you going to race?'

'Akito,' Seisuke replied, 'I want to race him one last time at the Centre with the Vera.'

'But…'

'Think about it, Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'the last time you saw him driving a normal car was ages ago.'

'That's true,' Kyosuke said.

'Don't you want to check his current style one last time before you race him?' Seisuke asked.

'Yes, I do,' Kyosuke admitted.

'Then, help me organise it so that it stays a secret from everyone else,' Seisuke said.

'Okay,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'll help you but do you think he'll accept the challenge?'

'Of course he will,' Seisuke said sounding very sure of himself, 'he still owes me a rematch.'

Kyosuke let out a chuckle and seeing his younger brother's determination lit up a fire within himself:

It was time to get ready for the battle against Akito.

_To be continued…_


	62. Chapter Sixty One

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Sixty One_

Organising a secret race between a future doctor and a GP2 racer was almost as logistically challenging as the average United Nations summit. Firstly, the future doctor had to casually approach the GP2 racer, better if he was alone, and convince him to accept the challenge without raising any suspicions regarding the real nature of the race. Seisuke found such chance one Friday afternoon while Akito waited for Ryoko in the Takahashi's living room.

'Hey, Akito!' he exclaimed, 'I didn't know you'd be here.'

'My Dad just dropped me off,' Akito explained, 'Ryoko and I are going to the cinema.'

'Ah, great,' Seisuke said taking a seat near his best friend, 'how are things?'

'We're great,' Akito replied now looking a little freaked out, 'yourself?'

'Never been better,' Seisuke said.

'I'm glad to hear that,' Akito replied.

Seisuke damned himself for how badly the conversation was going then, picking himself up, he asked him:

'Listen, are you free one of the coming days?'

'Er…' Akito hesitated while he mentally went through his busy agenda, 'I should be off next Monday, we're leaving for Belgium on Tuesday morning so the whole team has been given one day of holidays and since I'm also free from school, I was thinking of asking Ryoko to visit that new exhibition centre with me, why?'

'Ah,' Seisuke said, 'she'll probably like that.'

'I hope so,' Akito said, 'why did you ask?

'Oh,' Seisuke replied, 'I just thought if you could do me a little favour.'

'A favour?'

'Yeah,' Seisuke said now fully launched in his mission, 'I've been practicing some new blocking moves but before I try them on Mt Akagi, I wanted to test them at the Centre, you know, in a safer environment…'

'Why don't you ask Kyosuke?' Akito asked, 'I mean, he's got more experience than I do and…'

'See,' Seisuke interrupted not wanting Akito to ruin his plan, 'I always practice with him and this time I wanted to have a different partner, also, I'd like him to watch us so that he can spot any mistakes we make.'

'Ah, I see,' Akito said.

'But if you're too busy…'

'No, no,' Akito hurried to reply, 'I can see Ryoko in the morning and do this in the afternoon, right?'

'Of course,' Seisuke said trying to contain his enthusiasm.'

'After all,' Akito continued, 'I'll just have to drive one of the Centre's Vera behind your car for a while, right?'

'Well,' Seisuke said, 'not exactly, I was thinking of rendering the thing more realistic, like a proper race.'

'Oh,' Akito gasped, 'in that case I need to get it cleared with my father, if…'

'It won't be that serious,' Seisuke hurried to say, 'it'll just be for fun, well, for you, for me it's practice.'

Akito seemed to think about it making Seisuke hold his breath. He let it out when his best friend nodded.

'Okay, I'll do it,' he finally said.

'Brilliant,' Seisuke replied, 'I'll email you the details.'

The next thing one had to consider was the venue. Of course, having one's Uncle owning the premises where one wanted to have the race made things easier, however, there was the little issue of having to keep the whole thing a secret. For this reason, Kyosuke suggested applying a workaround to telling the truth.

'Uncle Keisuke,' he said poking his bleached spikes through the door of the man's office, 'can I have a word?'

'Sure,' Keisuke said setting down the piece of paper he was reading, 'take a seat.'

'Say,' Kyosuke said sitting at one of the two chairs in front of his desk, 'you, Aunt Kyoko and Takumi-san haven't had a full day off for quite a while, have you?'

'Not recently, why?' Keisuke asked.

'Well,' Kyosuke replied, 'I just found out that Akito's been given a full day off on Monday and I assume his father will have one too so, if you want, you all could take one day of holidays and go somewhere.'

'The three of us together?' Keisuke asked sounding sceptic and a little amused.

'No, no,' Kyosuke hurried to say, 'just you and Aunt Kyoko.'

The man remained quiet for a bit while he thought about it.

'Well,' he said, 'we were already planning on closing a bit earlier…'

'You were?' Kyosuke asked trying not to sound too hopeful.

'Yes,' Keisuke said, 'and since you've just told me Takumi will have a day off from Akito's team, well, I guess we could just close the centre for the day and move the bookings we have on that morning for another day.'

'Oh, you don't need to do that,' Kyosuke said, 'I can be here to take care of things, if you want.'

'Can you?' Keisuke asked, 'what about school, don't you need to do summer homework or something?'

'Uncle Keisuke,' Kyosuke said, 'I'm a fourth year college student, we don't really have summer homework.'

'Ah,' Keisuke said, 'I see…'

'So,' Kyosuke continued, trying to steer the conversation back on track, 'what do you say? About Monday...'

'It's a good idea,' Keisuke said, 'your aunt has been bugging me to take her to Tokyo for a while.'

'Now you can make her happy, right?' Kyosuke asked.

'I can,' Keisuke confirmed, 'I'll need to give you the keys so you can open and close, also, you…'

'Uncle Keisuke,' he interrupted, 'I've known how to handle things here at the Centre for a while, I'll be fine.'

'Alright,' Keisuke said, 'well, I guess I should thank you for helping me get your aunt off my case.'

'You're most welcome,' Kyosuke had the cheek to add.

With Akito's acceptance and having successfully secured the venue, the next step was to ensure that no one found out about the race. Now, Seisuke and Kyosuke weren't going to tell a soul but Akito was a little more difficult to handle. In the end, Seisuke just told him that he wanted to surprise everyone with his new moves and that it was important that he kept the whole thing to himself. Fortunately, the kid agreed to keep quiet.

Kyosuke then told Seisuke that he felt bad about keeping this from Kizuna so Seisuke decided to let her into the secret only if she sworn in the two languages she was fluent in that she would not tell anyone from the team. Thankfully, Kizuna was a very sensible girl and she understood that if Junya ever found out about this race, it would definitely upset the whole team so she remained silent but asked for a full report of the race.

On the afternoon of the last Monday of August, Kyosuke sent the last of the Centre's customers on their way, thanked the four instructors who had been working that day and then told them they could go home.

Half an hour later, at exactly four o'clock, Akito and Seisuke entered the main building's reception area.

'Hello,' Akito greeted Kyosuke.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said.

'Hi guys,' he replied, 'give me a second while I close the gates.'

'Alright,' Seisuke replied.

Kyosuke walked around the front desk and pressing the right buttons on the console, he closed all accesses to the Centre: the three of them were now on their own with all the Centre's facilities at their disposal. Not that they needed all of them though, the Takahashi brothers were interested in just one: the main track.

Leaving the two RZ-1s alone in the car park, they walked to the huge warehouse where they kept several Vera and, taking two of the keys from the cabinet, Kyosuke threw one at Seisuke and another one at Akito.

'Wait,' the racer asked the future doctor, 'aren't you going to drive your SF?'

'Nope,' Seisuke replied, 'I want to be on equal footing with you for this race.'

'I thought it wasn't going to be a race,' Akito said narrowing his eyes.

'Why?' Seisuke said plainly taunting him, 'you wouldn't be afraid if it were, would you?'

'Of course not,' Akito replied.

'Then,' Kyosuke added, 'it should be fine if you just let yourself go a little.'

'After all,' Seisuke finished, 'if you don't even try to put up a fight, it won't be much of a practice for me.'

'So, you want me to put up a fight?' Akito asked.

'If it's not too much trouble,' Seisuke said casually.

'Not at all,' Akito replied, his tone a much firmer one, 'in fact, I'll be more than happy to oblige.'

Seeing the competitive fire burning in his eyes made the two brothers look at each other and think:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

With that, Seisuke walked to the Vera number one while Akito found the Vera number six. The two of them got onboard the cars not even bothering with donning helmets or gloves or anything. They just strapped themselves onto the bucket seats and, soon, they joined Kyosuke who was already waiting at the pitlane.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said, 'you'll start the race from here, just drive out and take a full lap around the track, the instant you guys cross the finish line, you'll have to cover ten laps. I'll buy a full sushi meal to the winner.'

'That's…' Seisuke started protesting but then, he became quiet.

'Alright,' Akito said obviously not noticing Seisuke's slip.

'On your marks!' Kyosuke shouted.

Closing the windows once again, the two drivers revved their engines and soon after that, they started the short drive down the pitlane to go and join the main track, Akito was surprisingly slow and that allowed Seisuke to keep up with him fairly easily. Things changed drastically once both cars were out on the track.

'Oh wow,' Kyosuke gasped.

Akito had just taken off, leaving Seisuke behind so embarrassingly quickly that it made Kyosuke feel sorry for his younger brother. In an attempt at preserving some dignity, Seisuke started pushing his Vera and within half a lap, the two cars were cruising along with Seisuke's car just under half a second behind Akito's.

Things sped up once again when the two cars crossed the finish line. There, Akito seemed to decide that the real race started and Kyosuke saw him increasing the speed by about fifteen percent making Seisuke's task of keeping up with him a much more difficult one. Somehow, he still managed and by the end of the first lap, Kyosuke had the small satisfaction of seeing that his younger brother's car still was just behind Akito's.

But that wasn't good enough, Seisuke decided. He needed to try and overtake Akito or his older brother's morale would reach a scarily low level and, while he was at it, try to salvage some of his own racer's pride.

For these two reasons, Seisuke forced his Vera to give him more power and, just as they reached one of the fastest corners of the track, he literally stuck the front of his Vera to the back of Akito's and when the two cars exited the corner, Seisuke tried veering outwards in an attempt to level with Akito. That, didn't work.

He hadn't even thought of pressing the accelerator when he saw Akito placing himself right in front of him, effectively closing him the gap. Seisuke was also forced to slow down to avoid a collision, something Akito quickly used to his own advantage and, for the following two corners, Seisuke just tried to catch up again.

This weird dance repeated itself over and over throughout the next five and a half laps, with Seisuke trying to overtake Akito everywhere he could while the young racer blocked him every single time. Then, at the start of the sixth lap, Akito slowed down while going wide outwards. At first, Seisuke thought that he was having some mechanical problem with his Vera but then, he realised that Akito wanted him to overtake him.

'What the…' Seisuke whispered.

Forced to pass Akito's Vera, Seisuke considered giving up the race too but then, he thought that his older brother would probably be keen to see Akito in attack mode and that, together with his own will to preserve some of his racer's pride was what made Seisuke push his car to its limits, hoping to leave Akito behind. Alas, that didn't last for long.

The two cars had just completed two thirds of the sixth lap when Seisuke saw that Akito was making his first move: going around a tight left-hander, Seisuke saw that Akito was keeping his car insanely close to the inside of the corner and, just as Seisuke moved that way in order to close him the gap, Akito made his car slide outwards and, opening the throttle, he overtook him with such ease that it made Seisuke want to cry. Not giving up just yet, Seisuke went on the attack once again and corner after corner, he kept trying to pass Akito but, in spite of his best efforts, by the end of the tenth lap Akito was twelve seconds ahead of Seisuke.

That made Kyosuke feel a very queasy sensation in his stomach.

Following the two Vera with his eyes, he saw them going around the circuit one last time, with Akito slowing down once again so that Seisuke could catch up with him. Then, the two cars entered the pitlane and he saw Seisuke getting out of the car, looking depressed and ready to cope with Akito's scornful remarks. Weirdly enough, not only Akito didn't laugh at him but he actually looked a little guilty and very worried.

'I'm sorry about that,' he told Seisuke, 'I kind of got carried away.'

'Why are you apologising?' a very astonished Seisuke asked.

'Wasn't the whole point of this race for you to practice your new blocking moves?' a confused Akito asked.

'Akito,' Kyosuke felt the need to say, 'we need to be honest with you.'

'Yeah,' Seisuke added, 'in reality, I just wanted to race you.'

'What?' Akito asked then, he added, 'why?'

'Just because,' Seisuke replied shrugging his shoulders.

'But you could have asked me anytime,' Akito said frowning a little, 'why did you have to do all of this?'

'We had a few reasons,' Kyosuke explained, 'but I guess you're right, we could have asked you anytime.'

'Yeah,' Akito said, 'I'm always happy to race you guys, you know, I too need the practice.'

'No, you don't,' Seisuke said realising a split-second too late he had spoken his thoughts out loud.

'What he means,' Kyosuke hurried to explain, 'is that you're getting enough practice as it is.'

Akito didn't say anything to that, instead, he asked, 'so, what do we do next?'

'We could call the girls and meet up with them,' Kyosuke suggested.

'Alright,' Seisuke agreed while Akito just nodded.

Later on that evening, after dropping Akito back home, the two brothers and their cousin Ryoko drove back to Maebashi ready to enjoy something yummy to eat. Seisuke had almost forgotten about his humiliation at the hands of his so-called best friend when they all heard the sounds made by two Vera engines coming from the living room. Confused, they rushed in and found the original set of Takahashi brothers watching a video.

'That's…' Kyosuke started.

'Hello boys, Ryoko,' Ryosuke said obviously fighting to keep a straight face.

'Hi Uncle Ryosuke,' she replied, 'hi Daddy,' she added while she sat down next to her father.

'Dad,' Seisuke asked, 'that video…that's…'

'…a very interesting watch,' Keisuke finished for him, 'you see, when your brother came to me the other day suggesting that we should take the day off, I got a little suspicious and when I told your father, he told me to let you guys do whatever it was that you had planned and to use the Centre's security cameras to watch you.'

'They stream directly into the server,' Ryosuke explained, 'so we could see and hear everything you did live.'

'Dad…'

'I must say,' the doctor continued, 'that more we watch what happened during the race, the worse it looks.'

'DAD!' Seisuke exclaimed.

'What we'd like to know,' Ryosuke said, 'is the reason why you had to trick poor Akito into racing you.'

'Er…'

'He's your best friend, isn't he?' Keisuke asked, 'he would probably race you anytime you want.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke admitted, 'but it's just that…'

'Let me guess,' Ryosuke said, 'you wanted to check his current driving style first-hand.'

'Er…'

'…because you will be racing him soon,' Ryosuke finished.

'How do you know that?' Seisuke asked him looking a little freaked.

'Boys,' Keisuke said giving them a knowing smile, 'he's your father, he'll always know more than you do.'

At that point, Ryoko burst out laughing looking like she'd wanted to do that from the very beginning.

'Oh gosh,' she wheezed, 'if Akito ever finds out about this.'

'You can't tell him!' Seisuke exclaimed rushing towards her, 'you just can't! Okay?'

'Alright,' she agreed getting up and taking a step away from her cousin, 'it's not like it would bother him.'

'What do you mean by that?' Kyosuke asked.

'He expects you to be getting ready to race him, just like he's getting ready to race you' Ryoko said.

Refusing to elaborate her statement, the girl just left the room leaving everyone wondering.

'Son,' Ryosuke said breaking the silence, 'I know you probably want to get ready for this race on your own but, you can ask me or your uncle, we'll always be happy to give you some tips, if you think you need them.'

'Thanks Dad,' Kyosuke replied, 'but I'd prefer doing this by myself.'

'I can respect that,' his father said nodding his approval.

'Me too,' Keisuke added, 'but if you change your mind, let us know, okay?'

'Sure,' Kyosuke replied.

'Alright,' Ryosuke said, 'now, let's re-watch the part where Akito slows down and…'

'DAD!' Seisuke exclaimed sounding upset, 'can you not watch that video ever again?'

Ryosuke and Keisuke let out a soft chuckle before the older brother said:

'Son, you have no sense of humour.'

Two weeks after that awkward episode, early on the second Saturday of September, both sets of Takahashi brothers were in their living room together with their partners ready to watch Fuji TV's live broadcast of the GP2 race in the famous circuit of Monza in northern Italy, near Milan one of the world's fashion capitals.

'I can't believe you guys let Ryoko go to Italy with Akito,' Seisuke told his uncle and aunt.

'Well,' Kyoko replied, 'it's what she wanted as present for her eighteenth birthday and Takumi's there too.'

'Gosh, it's hard to believe she's already eighteen!' Akiko exclaimed.

'Tell me about it,' Keisuke nearly grunted.

'What I can't believe,' Kizuna said, 'is that she's postponing taking her driving test.'

'She said she isn't too bothered,' Kyosuke explained, 'and that she might even wait until Akito takes his.'

'That's just five more weeks, isn't it?' Ryosuke asked.

'Yes,' Seisuke replied, 'five weeks and that little punk will have his own car.'

'I wonder what he's going to buy,' Kyosuke added.

'You haven't asked him?' Kizuna asked looking incredulous.

'Of course we have,' Seisuke replied.

'He just wouldn't tell us,' Kyosuke added, 'he said he hasn't made his mind up yet.'

'That's actually true,' Keisuke commented, 'Takumi himself told me that Akito is still considering his options.'

'What's to decide?' Kaori asked intervening in the conversation for the first time.

'Well,' Seisuke replied, 'there are a lot of things to consider. It's going to be his first car so…'

'Guys,' Kyoko interrupted, 'they're starting, let's talk about this later, okay?'

'Sure,' Seisuke replied.

Almost every pair of eyes focused on the TV screen while Kaori just pretended she was vaguely interested.

At the same time, in the Monza circuit, Ryoko followed Takumi into the pitbox assigned to the PIAA-Tanaka racing team where they found their two drivers, Akito and Ruben, getting ready for the race. Just before Akito could don his fireproof balaclava, Ryoko approached him, squeezed his hand and smiling, she said:

'Be careful, okay?'

'I will be,' he replied then, he smiled and said, 'you know, I could get used to this.'

'To what?' she asked.

'To you telling me to be careful in person,' Akito explained, 'it's even more reassuring.'

'Well,' Ryoko said, 'do get used to it because if I have any say in the matter, now that I'm allowed to travel abroad without having to ask for my parents' permission, I have every intention of travelling to every race.'

'Really?' Akito asked, 'what about school?'

'I can work around that,' Ryoko replied.

'It'd be fantastic…' Akito said, he was going to add something but he got called by the team's chief engineer.

'I'll see you after the race,' Ryoko said still smiling at him.

'You will,' he promised.

Hurrying to get his helmet on, he clipped it to its HANS device and got onboard the PIAA-Tanaka GP2 Dallara, starting up the Mechachrome-built V8 engine, its nearly six hundred horsepower roaring back at him. He then followed Ruben out of their pitbox, ready to join the queue which was forming at the pitlane.

The two cars made their way around the circuit and, for the first time that season, Akito stopped his car at the pole position and glancing up at the beautifully blue Italian sky, Akito spared a moment to think of the one driver he would have liked to see in that very spot. Focusing back on the track, Akito muttered quietly:

'Guelfi-san, this race is for you.'

Exactly three minutes later, the semaphore's lights turned green and the race started.

The twenty four cars of the grid all fought to get to the first corner of the Rettifilo chicane before anyone else did but while Akito did manage to keep everyone behind, as they got to the Curva Grande, the ADDAX car in second place overtook him in a reasonably clean move. Akito knew that it was bound to happen and did his best to stay behind the red car as they made it to the Variante della Roggia.

Fortunately, the ADDAX wasn't faster than his PIAA-Tanaka and two laps later, while both cars left the Variante Ascari behind and were cruising towards the Parabolica, Akito noticed that Ruben's car was just behind him which meant that at some point his team mate had overtaken the third placed Arden Racing car.

The red ADDAX and the two black and white PIAA-Tanaka negotiated the fast right-hander following each other into the circuit's main straight and there, Akito saw something which made him feel a little confused: for some reason, his team mate wasn't going as fast as he could and, instead, Ruben seemed to be acting as a block, keeping not only the Arden Racing car firmly behind him but every other car too.

'Fujiwara-kun,' Akito heard Tanaka-san's voice, 'Ruben-kun wants you to remember your promise.'

Hearing that, he no longer felt confused. Instead, he smiled and said:

'Please tell him I will.'

He was already back at the Variante della Roggia when he saw his opportunity. The ADDAX had just started slowing down a bit in preparation for the Curva di Lesmos when Akito decided to forget about common sense and, speeding along the short straight leading to the circuit's four corner, he basically pushed the red car out of his way, entering Curva di Lesmos ahead of it. Needless to say, it was a great overtaking move.

'Did you see that?' Ryoko exclaimed tugging Takumi's sleeve.

'Yep,' the man replied looking very pleased.

'That was barely legal,' Tanaka-san had to point out, 'but that's alright, the sponsors will love it.'

'That kid's got plenty of guts,' the chief engineer commented.

'That's precisely the reason why I hired him,' Tanaka-san replied making Takumi feel even prouder.

Back on the track, Akito was now cruising along the straight before the Parabolica and then a little behind him, he saw Ruben overtaking the ADDAX. The manoeuvre made both cars lose a little time and by the time Akito made it to the main straight, he had a very comfortable lead which he kept on building up until the moment when he was called to do his pitstop.

Giving up the lead of the race temporarily to Ruben, Akito re-joined the track in fourth place, just behind the second of the Campos Racing cars and the blue iSports which was now in second place behind Ruben. Two laps later, both Campos Racing and iSports car went in for their own pitstops leaving Akito behind Ruben.

'Stay where you are,' Takumi warned his son.

Akito didn't reply but he knew that he had to resist the temptation to try and overtake his team mate. Instead, he decided to return the favour to Ruben and, acting as a block to the other drivers, he allowed his team mate to build up the advantage he needed to do his pitstop and return to the track just behind him.

Everything seemed to be heading towards a fairly comfortable PIAA-Tanaka one-two finish but, two laps before the end, Akito saw the one of the Super Nova proceeding at a very slow speed. Akito was about to veer to dodge it when the Super Nova engine just exploded spraying oil all over the place, including the visor on Akito's helmet, he then peeled off one of the plastic films which covered it with one hand while he fought with the steering with the other and passed the broken down Super Nova just in time to avoid the massive trail of oil the car was leaving.

Thankfully, Ruben saw everything and got enough warning to pull out of trouble. The two PIAA-Tanaka cars were clear but then, the Arden Racing car which was in third place skid onto the oil, spinning out of control and crashing onto the wall of tyres just off the Variante Ascari. Naturally, the safety car was then deployed.

'Akito, take it easy,' his father told him.

Akito agreed to do just that. With less than one and a half laps to go and the safety car out, the race was over: five weeks before he was legally allowed to drive a road car, Akito Fujiwara had won his first GP2 race.

'Dad,' an astonished Kyosuke said back in Japan.

'Yes, son?' Ryosuke replied.

'That offer to help me prepare for my race against Akito,' Kyosuke replied, 'does it still apply?'

'Of course it does,' Ryosuke replied.

'Great,' Kyosuke said looking slightly anguished, 'because I think I'm going to need all the help I can get.'

Everyone in the room tried really hard not to laugh at him. A few minutes later, what was left of Kyosuke's dignity was salvaged by the podium ceremony where they saw Akito looking very proud but quite emotional at his trophy, touching it with his right hand before pointing with its index finger up towards the sky.

'Why is he doing that?' Kizuna asked.

'I think I know,' Seisuke replied, his eyes looking a little shinier than usual.

'Kizuna,' Kyosuke explained, 'it's the Italian GP2 race, the one Guelfi-san never got to enter.'

'Oh,' Kizuna gasped, 'Akito…'

'Yeah,' Seisuke said, 'that punk is surprisingly sensitive.'

The punk, his father and Ryoko returned to Japan a couple of days later and, after dropping his girlfriend off home with the promise they would meet up soon with the whole gang to celebrate his first win, the two Fujiwara drove back to Shibukawa ready to take the rest of the family out for dinner. Alas, when they got home, they found that Haruko had been sent to stay with Itsuki's wife, Mariko while Itsuki himself was at the Fujiwara residence doing his best to soothe an extremely anxious looking Natsuki.

'What happened?' Takumi asked his best friend.

'Er…' Itsuki started.

Natsuki then got up from the couch and, hugging Takumi tightly, she cried, 'thank god you're home!'

'Natsuki,' Takumi said, 'what…'

'It's your father,' Natsuki said, her voice quavering with worry.

'What about him?' Akito asked beginning to panic too.

'He's gone,' Itsuki replied, 'he's been gone for three days and nobody knows where he is.'

_To be continued…_


	63. Chapter Sixty Two

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Sixty Two_

As it often happens in these occasions, it took several seconds before Takumi's brain started working again and, trying to recover from the shock of thinking something terrible had happened to his father, he started thinking of what people did in these kind of cases. He began asking the most obvious question:

'Have you called the police?'

'Not yet,' Itsuki replied.

'We were waiting for you to get home,' Natsuki added pulling herself away from him.

'Alright,' Takumi said, 'then that's the first thing we have to do.'

The man hadn't taken a single step towards the front door when the phone at the Fujiwara residence started ringing. Akito was the closest to the small table on which the device was usually found so he went to pick up the wireless receiver and, pressing the button to answer the call, he said:

'Hello?'

He then listened while his parents and Itsuki watched his expression going from normal to utterly stunned.

'Yes, sir,' he almost whispered, 'I understand, thank you for letting us know.'

Replacing the device onto its small base, he turned round very slowly while he tried to keep on breathing.

'Who was it?' Takumi asked his son.

'Tachibana-san,' Akito replied.

'Our ex-manager?' Itsuki asked him.

'Yes,' the boy replied, 'he said that he's heard from Iketani-san that we were looking for Grandpa.'

'Does he know where he is?' Takumi asked.

Akito nodded once and said:

'Not only he knows, but he also said Grandpa wants us to go there.'

'Where?' Itsuki asked.

'Suzuki-san's place,' Akito replied, 'Grandpa is there and Tachibana-san said he'd meet us there too.'

'Why is he at Suzuki-san's?' Takumi asked.

'And why hasn't your grandfather called us himself?' Natsuki asked finally finding her voice.

'No idea,' Akito replied.

'Well,' Itsuki said, 'there's only one way to find out: let's go all go there.'

'I'll go to get Haruko from your place,' Natsuki announced, 'while I'm at it, I'll tell Mariko we've found him.'

'That's a good idea,' Takumi approved.

With that decided, the two adult men and the teenager walked to Itsuki's Daihatsu minivan and, climbing into it, Takumi tried very hard not to remember what it was like when his best friend was at the wheel but seeing his son's worried expression made him forget about Itsuki's less than refined driving style.

It helped that the ride was a very short one and less than ten minutes later they were already cruising down the narrow street where Masashi Suzuki had lived for most of his life. They found Bunta's electric blue GC8 parked right in front of the house's main entrance and, leaving the minivan right behind it, they walked to the gate.

Takumi hadn't even lifted his arm to ring the bell when they heard the sound of old men's laughing out loud coming from the back of the house. Impatient to see what was going on, Akito rang the bell instead of his father and a few minutes later, they saw three seventy-something year old men walking around the corner, all looking like they didn't have a care in the world. Just then, Bunta noticed them and smiling, he said:

'Oh, you're already here!'

'Grandpa, what's...'

'Shush,' the man said giving a dismissing little wave with his wrinkled hand, 'come in, come in.'

'Bunta,' Masashi protested, 'will you quit behaving like this is your house?'

'Oh, stop complaining,' Bunta said and glancing back at his grandson, he admonished him, 'what are you still doing there? Come on in.'

Takumi and Akito exchanged a frustrated glance before they opened the gate to step in the house's small front garden. For once, Itsuki decided to remain quiet and followed them in without uttering a single word.

'Follow me,' Bunta instructed to the three newcomers.

'Dad…'

'Not now,' Bunta stopped Takumi, 'come on Akito, it's this way.'

Giving up, the three of them followed the other three, much older men around the corner of the house towards the large garage Masashi had built attached to the back of his home. There, they saw that the gate was wide open and, even from where they were, they could see something which made Akito's jaw drop.

'That…' he started then, he tried again, 'what's…'

'All in due time,' Bunta said looking highly amused.

'Kids these days,' Masashi added.

'They're always in a hurry,' Yuuichi finished.

The three old men let out a chuckle at the same time making it look like some sort of weird comedic gag.

Akito, Takumi and Itsuki didn't even notice because their attention was focused on the beautiful Toyota sitting in the middle of the garage. Its gleaming, perfect white paint made it obvious that it was brand new and if it weren't because Akito touched it with his own hand, he would have thought he was daydreaming wildly because the car he had in front of his eyes was just impossible. But yet, it was right there...

'Dad,' Takumi said, 'this car, it's a…'

'It's the new Toyota Vera V-86,' Masashi explained.

'One of the four hundred Toyota will release this Christmas,' Yuuichi added.

'But…how?' was all Akito managed to ask.

'It's not ours yet,' Bunta told him, 'I only got it on loan so that you could take it for a spin.'

'On loan?' Takumi asked narrowing his eyes.

'Yeah,' Bunta replied, 'I went to visit one of my contacts and he showed me this beautiful machine and since I knew Akito was having trouble finding the right car, I thought of maybe helping him make his mind up.'

'What?' Akito now exclaimed, 'you mean…you're saying I…wait,' he stopped, 'you're making fun of me.'

'Would I ever do that?' Bunta asked sounding a little offended.

'YES!' five voices replied at the same time making the crazy old man pout in a most child-like manner.

'Here I am doing you all a favour,' he mumbled clearly talking to himself.

'No, no,' Akito hurried to say, 'it's just that, this is…it's just too awesome, I just...I can't believe it!'

'So, you don't want to try it?' Bunta asked recovering amazingly fast.

'I do, I do!' Akito exclaimed almost bobbing with enthusiasm, 'but…can I really drive it?'

'Of course you can,' Bunta replied, 'you've already applied for your theory test, haven't you?'

'Yes, I have,' Akito replied, 'I submitted the inscription to the driving school before we left for Italy.'

'Then,' Bunta said, 'you can drive any car provided you have someone with a full license with you and more than ten years of experience, if I come with you, I think we'll fit both requirements rather nicely, won't we?'

'Of course,' Akito replied.

'Then, in you go,' Bunta ordered him.

'Dad,' Takumi stopped him, 'what did you do with the shop? I mean, did you close it while you were gone?'

'Only during the day,' Bunta admitted.

'I took care of the nightly deliveries,' Yuuichi announced sounding very proud.

'Manager,' a startled Takumi asked, 'I'm sorry but, can you even make tofu?'

'Of course he can,' Bunta replied instead.

'That's right,' Yuuichi confirmed, 'I ran that shop single-handedly while this rascal was actively racing.'

'Is that true?' Akito asked his grandfather.

'Not really,' Bunta replied, 'it was that saint of a wife he has who did most of the work.'

'Bunta, you b…'

'We better go,' Bunta interrupted his so-called best friend, 'we'll only have the car for a short while.'

Akito watched the old man walking towards the new Toyota, climbing into the passenger seat with the agility of a teenager. He then exchanged a quick glance with his father who just shrugged his shoulders as if telling him to just go along with the old man, no matter how crazy he sounded. Oddly enough, Itsuki was still quiet.

While he walked to the car, Akito started taking a few of the details in: the car looked a lot like the Vera for it had been built onto the same platform and since the design of the Vera itself had been largely inspired by the last generation of the Celica, the body of the V-86 also bore a strong resemblance to that car.

Its low arrowhead silhouette, the streamlined aerodynamic elements relatively high suspensions and the compact sturdiness it possessed made it a very good machine to take up the mountain passes. The last thing Akito noticed before climbing in was the set of retractable lights placed near the edge of the bonnet.

Inside the car was even better: there were two bucket seats mounted in front, both had a four point racing harness mounted which were secured at the back of the car, passing over the backseat which was thus rendered useless. Akito also saw that the inside had been reinforced with a roll-cage and the pedals, steering wheel and gear stick had been probably upgraded from whatever the car was supposed to come equipped with.

'What do you think?' Bunta asked him.

'Think?' Akito said as if he didn't know the meaning of the word, 'I can't think right now…'

'Alright,' Bunta accepted, 'then, turn it on and let the engine do the talking.'

Agreeing one hundred and twenty percent, Akito just turned the key in the ignition and then he exclaimed:

'WOW!'

If he had looked through the windscreen, he would have seen that both his father and his best friend had reacted in the same exact manner, alas, his brain cells were all kept busy coping with the sensations the car and its engine were delighting him with. Feeling a little daring, he pressed the accelerator a little bit more.

'Whoa,' he gasped.

'Kiddo,' Bunta laughed, 'when you're done making funny noises, do you think you can drive us out of here?'

Akito looked at his grandfather feeling suddenly scared.

'But Grandpa,' he said, 'what if…'

'…if you crash it?' Bunta finished for him, 'well, that would be problematic.'

'It would, wouldn't it?' he asked apprehensively.

'Of course,' Bunta said, 'if you break it, you pay it.'

'Oh,' Akito gasped again, 'I'm definitely going to buy it, there's no way I…'

'Kiddo,' Bunta interrupted him, 'let's just take it for a spin and then make your decision, okay?'

At long last and just as everyone else was beginning to wonder what was going on in the car, Akito, for the first time ever, pressed the car's clutch, entered the first gear, released the handbrake and slowly letting go of the clutch, he increased the pressure on the accelerator making the car roll out of Masashi's garage.

Akito then took the car out on the road, bypassing Bunta's Impreza and Istuki's Daihatsu and soon, he was on his way to the only possible place he could think of as the best road on which to test this beautiful V-86.

If he had liked it the instant he'd seen it, as he took the car around the first corner of Mt Akina, he decided that he was utterly, madly and definitely in love with the V-86. It had to be his, he simply would not let anyone else have it. Tightening his grasp onto the black steering wheel, he felt electrified with emotion.

Neither he nor Bunta spoke during the entire trip up the mountain nor when Akito took the car around the car park by the lake to get it facing downhill and the two also remained silent while they went back to the base. In fact, Akito only spoke the moment they reached the spot where a million years ago, his father had overtaken Ryosuke Takahashi. There, he pulled the car to the side of the road and smiling widely, he said:

'I love this car.'

'Alright,' Bunta replied.

'Please tell me I can buy it,' Akito practically begged.

'Well,' Bunta started.

'Grandpa,' he interrupted him getting a little desperate, 'I'll do anything. I really need this car, I just…'

'Hey,' Bunta stopped him, 'I never said you couldn't buy it, it's just that I wanted to buy it for you.'

'What?' Akito now gasped.

'Well,' the old man said, 'I was going to do it anyway but since you've won your first GP2 race, I…'

'Grandpa,' Akito said getting very serious, 'I appreciate the thought, I really do, but I don't think it's a good idea if you buy me my first car. I mean, I would probably accept it if I didn't have my own money but I do and I think that I should pay for the car myself, I think that this way I'll take much better care of it.'

Bunta nodded once, his expression a fully approving one.

'Kiddo,' he said patting him on his head, 'I'm proud of you.'

'You are?' a surprised Akito asked.

'Of course,' Bunta said sounding a tad embarrassed, 'but don't you ever tell anyone, I'd deny it.'

'Grandpa…'

'Now,' the man said getting all business-like again, 'since you're going to pay for the car yourself, I think that I should give you something else as a present for your first GP2 win so, what do you say if you let me try and make this car a little more driveable? As you can see there have been some improvements done to it already but I think that there are a few things which need to be changed before this car is ready for you.'

'What do you mean?' Akito asked.

'Well,' Bunta explained, 'the car's not bad now, it's just the way a car should be: precise and sharp at the front and a little loose at the back, but I think the steering is a little too vague and the suspensions also need some work and that engine sounds great but I'm sure we can get a little more power out of it.'

'Grandpa,' Akito treaded carefully, 'are you saying what I think you're saying?'

'I don't know,' Bunta replied, 'I'm just a tofu-maker, not a mind-reader.'

Akito repressed the urge to snort, instead, he said:

'You want to give the car an overhaul?'

'Well,' Bunta said, 'I wouldn't call it an overhaul, I'd just make it easier to drive, that's all.'

'Grandpa…'

'After all,' the man added, 'this is your first car and even if you are a tiny bit better than your father was when he was your age, you still need to work on your technique a lot so you'll need a car that will be able to cope with the mistakes you'll definitely make while you two get to know each other.'

Knowing his grandfather was only speaking the truth, Akito just nodded and with that, an agreement was reached. After that, Akito took the car for a few more runs up Mt Akina using up the chance to see if his grandfather would give him some advice but, as usual, the man remained silent throughout the ride.

This time though it was a little different, be it with a change of position of his body, a click of his tongue or by shaking his head, Akito noticed that his grandfather was giving him subtle hints where he thought there was room for improvement and, by the third run, Akito had already mapped the spots where that happened.

They didn't get back at Masashi's until an hour later and, by then, the other four men were inside enjoying some tea or, in Yuuichi's case, a bottle of beer. They all looked at Bunta and Akito when they came back in.

'So,' Takumi asked his son, 'what did you think of the car?'

'It's mine,' was Akito's simple reply.

'Alright,' Takumi agreed, 'I take you'll want to pay for it.'

'Yes,' Akito replied then, looking at Itsuki, he added, 'Uncle Itsuki, do you think you could repaint it?'

'Repaint it?' Itsuki asked, 'but it's a brand new car, it'd be such a waste.'

'I know,' Akito said, 'but I want to copy the pattern of Dad's 86.'

'You want to paint it black and white like a panda?' Itsuki asked obviously doubting Akito's taste.

'Yes, that's right,' Akito replied firmly, 'that won't be a problem, will it Grandpa?'

'Of course not,' the old man said, 'besides, that black and white pattern will make it look good.'

'You're only saying that because it was you who painted the 86 that way,' Yuuichi pointed out.

Bunta, of course, ignored him.

'Alright,' Akito said breaking the silence, 'I would need to ask you all for a huge favour.'

'What do you need?' Masashi asked him speaking on everyone's behalf.

'Please, let's keep this a secret from everybody,' Akito asked.

'Even Kyosuke and Seisuke?' Takumi asked him.

'Especially Kyosuke and Seisuke,' Akito replied, 'I want to surprise them.'

'Alright,' Takumi accepted, 'you won't tell Ryoko-chan either then, will you?'

'I'll try not to,' Akito said but knowing his girlfriend, he simply couldn't make any promises.

'Good luck with that then,' Bunta laughed at him.

Very soon after that, they all returned to their homes: Akito and his father to theirs where Haruko and Natsuki were eagerly awaiting for news; Bunta to his shop to assess how Yuuichi had fared during his absence, while Yuuichi himself went back to his wife Fuka. The whole gang promised to meet up sometime during the week to properly celebrate Akito's first GP2 win, and the fact that he had finally got his first car.

The following Wednesday evening, the Golden Arrows met up at the bottom of Mt Akagi, in theory to train, in practice to discuss the increasing amount of rumours regarding Kyosuke's and Akito's upcoming battle.

'People are going mental about it,' Masato commented.

'I know,' Eiji said, 'I was filling up my car at the station and I heard a couple of guys talking about it, one was saying that Kyosuke-san was going to race some professional rally racer while the other said he had heard it was some D1 driver.'

'That's not all,' Seisuke said, 'Nakazato told me that even a friend of his who lives up in Hokkaido had heard about this race. The only good thing is that the rumours aren't even getting the location right, this guy was under the impression that Aniki was going to race in Momiji Lane.'

'Well,' Kei said, 'they're also saying Leader is going to race against some monster car.'

'Speaking of which,' Izawa intervened, 'do we even know if Akito-kun has made his mind up?'

'Not as far as we know,' Kyosuke replied he noticed that Kizuna made a weird face and said, 'what's wrong?'

'Nothing,' she said, 'it's just that…it's probably nothing.'

'Please let me decide that,' Kyosuke told her gently.

'It's just that, this morning,' she explained, 'I went to visit Suzuki-san and, for some reason, the garage's gates were closed. Since they're usually wide open, I asked him about it but he pretended not to hear me.'

'Oh,' Kyosuke gasped.

'You think he's hiding something there?' Seisuke asked her.

'I don't know,' Kizuna replied, 'that's why I haven't mentioned anything earlier, I…'

'Of course he is hiding something,' Eiji interrupted her.

'Which means…' Shuji said.

'…that Akito-kun has bought his car already,' Tatsuya finished.

'No way,' Seisuke said, 'he would have told us.'

'Would he?' Kyosuke asked sounding sceptical.

'Aniki…'

'We didn't tell him when we got our cars, did we?' Kyosuke asked him.

'That's true,' the younger brother said.

'In that case,' Kizuna said, 'what do you guys think he's bought?'

'No idea,' Izawa replied.

'Well,' Masato considered, 'if we think of the car which would suit him best, I'd say he's got himself a Vera.'

'I don't think so,' Eiji said, 'besides, didn't he say he wanted a car with an FR layout?'

'That's true,' Seisuke agreed, 'he said he preferred a car like his father's 86.'

'Alright,' Masato said, 'that rules out the Civic and any 4WD cars out there, including the Vera.'

'I know what he'd buy,' Yuta announced.

'What?' Masato asked him.

'That new Toyota they announced at the latest car show,' he said, 'what was it called?'

'You mean the V-86?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yeah, that one,' Yuta said.

'No way,' Seisuke replied.

'Why not?' Shige asked.

'Because it hasn't even come out yet,' Seisuke replied.

'And it's a very limited edition,' Kyosuke added, 'only four hundred of them will be made.'

'And they've all been reserved to people who were handpicked by Toyota themselves,' Masato explained.

'Which means,' Eiji said, 'that there's no way Akito-kun might get his hands on one of them.'

'Oh,' Yuta gasped, 'in that case, I have no idea.'

They kept on speculating until Junya, getting tired of the conversation, decided to get in his car to do some runs. He was promptly followed by Shinji and everyone took that as their cue to get in their cars as well. It wasn't until nearly midnight when Kyosuke dismissed the group and soon they all started heading home in the usual pairs. In the end, the only ones left behind were Kizuna, Kyosuke and Seisuke.

'Let's hurry or we'll be late,' Kyosuke warned them.

Half an hour later, they were at the summit of Mt Akina, waiting for their two very special trainers.

'That must be them,' Kizuna said hearing a couple of rotary engines.

'Don't tell me that…'

'I think so,' Kyosuke said.

Coming up the road, they saw that instead of the family's MPV, Ryosuke and Keisuke Takahashi had decided to use their pride and joy, the white FC and the yellow FD to conduct that night's training. All three of them followed the two cars as the drove into one of the side roads at the top of Mt Akina, leaving the two Mazda next to the newer RZ-1 models. An instant later, the original set of Takahashi brothers got out of their cars.

'Good evening sons, Kizuna-chan,' Ryosuke said.

'Good evening,' Kizuna replied.

'D-dad...' Kyosuke stuttered slightly.

'Why?' was all that Seisuke could say.

'They're surprised to see them,' Keisuke said obviously talking to his older brother.

'I thought they would,' Ryosuke replied.

'But, why?' Seisuke insisted.

'I want to do a little experiment,' Ryosuke said.

'Yes,' Keisuke added and glancing at his watch, he said, 'we better hurry, we only have two hours.'

'Why two hours?' Kyosuke finally asked.

'Because Takumi told us he'd need the road after three am,' Ryosuke explained.

'Oh gosh,' Kizuna gasped.

'So, it's true,' Seisuke said, 'Akito's got his car already!'

'I think so,' Keisuke replied.

'Do you know which one?' Kyosuke asked him.

'No idea,' Keisuke replied.

'Dad?' Kyosuke tried.

'I honestly don't know,' Ryosuke replied, 'but it doesn't matter, even if you knew which car you'll be up against, it won't make much difference if you keep driving the way you've driven in these past evenings.'

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked trying to sound calm.

'Son,' Ryosuke said, 'there's something missing in your driving now, I'm not even entirely sure what it is but I think what I have in mind for tonight's training session might help you find it.'

'Come on boys,' Keisuke said, 'get in the cars.'

'Not those,' Ryosuke added seeing his sons heading towards their RZ-1s.

'What...'

'You,' Ryosuke said pointing at Kyosuke, 'will drive my FC.'

'While you,' Keisuke added talking to Seisuke, 'will take my FD.'

'WHAT?' both brothers exclaimed at the same time.

'You heard us,' Keisuke replied, 'you'll drive our cars for a few runs to get used to them.'

'And then,' Ryosuke continued, sounding way too calm, 'you two will race each other.'

_To be continued…_


	64. Chapter Sixty Three

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Sixty Three_

Finding it hard to believe what their father and uncle had just said, Kyosuke and Seisuke approached the FC and FD with religious reverence. The two nearly three decades old cars still looked as perfect as they did when they were purchased and somehow, they managed to look even faster than their own much newer RZ-1.

'Dad,' Seisuke found his voice to ask, 'can we really drive them?'

'Of course,' Ryosuke replied.

'Didn't we just tell you that?' Keisuke added.

'Yes, you did,' Kyosuke said, 'it's just that…'

'What?' Ryosuke interrupted him, 'do you trust your own driving abilities so little?'

'No, it's not that,' Kyosuke said.

'It's not?' Ryosuke asked sounding almost disappointed.

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'it's just that, these cars, they're…'

'…scary,' Seisuke finished.

'Scary?' Keisuke asked.

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'I wouldn't say scary, it's just that they're very imposing.'

'That's precisely the reason why we think it'll be a good mental training for you to drive them,' Ryosuke said.

'Come on,' Kizuna said speaking for the first time, 'have a go, you guys don't have much time.'

'She's right,' Keisuke agreed, 'hurry up and get in the cars.'

'Wait,' Ryosuke stopped them, 'before that, hand us over the keys to yours.'

'Wha…'

'Alright,' Kyosuke interrupted his brother then, taking it out of his pocket, he gave the key to his RZ-1 to his father while, after just a little hesitation, Seisuke also gave his to their uncle, 'you're going to follow us, right?'

'Correct,' Ryosuke replied calmly.

'Cool!' Seisuke exclaimed happily.

'Kizuna-chan,' Keisuke said, 'you should stay inside your car and lock yourself in it.'

'But…'

'We'd feel better if we you know you're safe,' Ryosuke added.

'Since we never know who might be coming up here,' Keisuke finished.

'Of course,' the girl said and exchanging a brief glance with her boyfriend, she walked towards her 350Z.

'Alright,' Keisuke said after hearing the Nissan's central locking system being activated, 'let's go.'

At long last, Kyosuke and Seisuke made their way to the two different generations of the Mazda RX-7. Kyosuke placed his hand onto the FC's handle and, opening the door, he felt his heartbeat increasing a notch. He then slid onto the bucket seat where his father had sat so many times before and, not giving himself time to think, he fastened the car's racing harness placed his hands onto the small steering wheel and he breathed deeply.

'Let's do this,' he whispered to himself while closing the car's door.

Turning the key into the ignition, he felt all the power from the ancient rotary engine coming straight to him from in front of the car. Kyosuke found that hearing such a magnificent symphony, he would never listen to the engine of his RZ-1 the same way again. This wasn't engineering, it was poetry, it was a masterpiece.

In the FD, Seisuke was feeling pretty much the same and it took him all his mental power not to burst into tears caused by the overwhelming emotion he felt at the wheel of such a great car. One thing was clear, this car had his uncle's imprint everywhere he looked and, for some odd reason, it felt as comfortable as if it were home.

'Come on, car,' Seisuke said turning the rotary on.

A few moments later, they heard the two RZ-1's engines coming alive too and, very soon after that, all four Mazda started moving at more or less the same time. Kyosuke was leading the way with his father following him closely while Seisuke was in a very privileged position going after his father. He paid so much attention to the ex-racer turned doctor's driving that he forgot he had a true ex-professional racer driving behind him.

Kyosuke didn't have that luxury and while he fought to keep control of the FC, trying to make it go as fast as he dared, he was acutely aware that his father was keeping a very close watch on his every move. He also knew that by the time they made it to the bottom, his father would have probably individuated every single one of his imperfections, no matter how slight they would be.

He wasn't wrong.

'So,' he asked him once they reached the bottom of the pass, 'what can I improve?'

'Son,' Ryosuke replied once again looking a little disappointed, 'it's too soon for that.'

'But…'

'Let's head back up,' Keisuke said without bothering to get out of Seisuke's RZ-1.

'Yes, let's,' Ryosuke agreed.

Knowing better than to argue, Kyosuke and Seisuke got back into their cars and while they completed several runs, neither Ryosuke nor Keisuke would tell them anything about what they thought. It was a very frustrating feeling and both Kyosuke and Seisuke felt oddly relieved when, at the end of the seventh run as they rejoined Kizuna back at the summit, their father told them to get out of their cars. Kyosuke noticed that both his father and uncle kept the keys to their RZ-1s with them. Then, Ryosuke said:

'Alright, now it's time for you to race.'

'But, Dad,' Kyosuke started, 'don't you have any advice or…'

'No,' Ryosuke replied, 'I don't think you're ready to hear anything I might be able to tell you.'

'But…'

'Dad,' Kyosuke interrupted his brother, 'can you please just tell us what you think of what you've seen so far?'

'Alright,' Ryosuke accepted letting out a resigned sigh, 'right now, your driving isn't that bad, you're doing all the right things and even though you have never driven my FC before, you were able to adapt to it surprisingly quickly, that said, there's still something missing and I'm pretty sure I've figured out what it is.'

'What is it?' Kyosuke asked him.

'First you should race your brother,' Ryosuke said, 'I'll tell you after I see the outcome of that race.'

'Fine,' Kyosuke said sounding a little too dry.

Ryosuke pretended not to hear that and, instead, he told his other son to get back into the FD.

'Dad,' Seisuke said, 'there's one thing I need to understand.'

'There are many things you still need to understand,' Ryosuke countered, 'but go ahead, what is it?'

Seisuke looked a little startled but, trying to recover, he said:

'Why do you want me to race Aniki?'

'That's easy,' Ryosuke said, 'both your uncle and I think that your aggressive driving style is the most similar to Akito's also, there's almost the same emotional factor that your brother will have to battle with the day he'll race him.'

'Emotional factor?' Kyosuke asked.

'Yes,' Ryosuke replied, 'your friendship with Akito, the fact that you see him as a second brother, it means that by racing Seisuke you will be confronted with more or less the same emotional issues you'll have which might end up hampering your race.'

'Also,' Keisuke added, 'by racing someone with a similar driving style you should be better prepared.'

'Now, enough talking,' Ryosuke said, 'you two, get back in the cars.'

'Take this seriously,' Keisuke warned them.

'We will,' both brothers promised at the same time.

While they climbed back into the FC and the FD, Kizuna joined the original set of Takahashi brothers who were getting ready to follow the race using the GPS system from Ryosuke's own phone. Kyosuke forced himself not to think of her or anything else for that matter. He had noticed that his father wasn't particularly impressed with his driving and that hurt his pride so badly that he felt like crying.

'Alright,' he muttered talking to the FC, 'Dad wants to see a proper race so let's give him one.'

At Keisuke's "GO!" the two cars took off with Kyosuke giving up the lead to his younger brother.

'Hey,' Keisuke said seeing that, 'it looks like it's working.'

'Not yet,' Ryosuke replied looking even more serious than usual.

'Aniki…'

'Kyosuke still hasn't understood what I want him to understand,' Ryosuke said.

'I know,' Keisuke replied.

Kizuna observed the two men carefully but she felt too intimidated by their presence to say anything at all.

Back in the FC, Kyosuke was busy chasing Seisuke in the FD. Surprisingly, his little brother was pushing the FD to its limits, almost as if he knew that it would be the only way to stay ahead. They went around several corners with Kyosuke just observing Seisuke's driving, taking note of his braking points and the small corrections he applied when the highly temperamental FD threatened to get out of his control. The two cars had covered a third of the distance when Kyosuke realised that he hadn't even tried to attack his younger brother once since the start of the race.

'Crap,' he muttered.

This was probably what his father had predicted would happen.

The problem was that racing Seisuke felt so familiar to him that he forgot about the actual competitive nature of the battle choosing to watch Seisuke's driving style instead and, with a pang, he realised that he risked doing the same exact thing during Akito's race.

No, he couldn't let that happen.

Steeling himself against the steering wheel, he followed Seisuke around one of the last left-hand corners before the five consecutive hairpins and with the two cars entering the bend together, Kyosuke waited till the exit to move inwards to the stony wall. There, he used the extra power he knew the FC's rotary would give him and was about to level the car with the FD when Seisuke used his best blocking techniques to close the gap.

Smiling involuntarily, Kyosuke tried doing the same attack at the exit of the following two corners with Seisuke stopping each of the two attempts showing him that he had improved significantly since the last time they had raced each other. Not wanting to fall back into the trap of getting distracted by overanalysing Seisuke's driving style, Kyosuke decided that he would stage his next attack at the first of the hairpins.

He had learned about the gutter run from what his father had told him and even though he had practised it a few times, he had never really tried it during a race, Kyosuke lowered the tyres into it but saw that his brother was doing the same thing.

Starting to get very frustrated, he decided to adopt a drastic measure:

At the second hairpin, he went to get the tyres back into the inner gutter but, just as he saw Seisuke doing the same thing, he moved away from it and by pushing the car's engine to its limits to take him to the furthest possible racing line, he finally managed to catch Seisuke off guard. He levelled the FC with the FD before exiting the hairpin right ahead of the yellow RX-7.

'Geez,' he whispered finally allowing himself to breathe.

Knowing better than to relax just yet, Kyosuke tried to put as much distance as he could somehow managing to avoid Seisuke's attacks at the final three hairpins. The dogfight extended itself all the way to the corner where one could catch the first glimpse of Shibukawa's city lights. There, Seisuke seemed to give up letting him stay on the lead all the way to the part of the road where the two lanes became three.

It was then when Seisuke launched one last, desperate attack: drifting the FD outwards, he almost risked getting it out of his control but he still managed to level with the FC, both cars reaching the final part of the race running in perfectly parallel lines. Seisuke started thinking that he might actually be able to win the race when, all of a sudden, his older brother conjured some extra speed out of the FC's rotary and, an instant later, it was all over. Kyosuke had won the race.

'As predicted,' Seisuke said feeling just a little bit disappointed.

Just then, they heard the sound of the two other rotary engines followed by the Nissan's V6 and a few moments later, all five cars were parked at the bottom of Mt Akina's pass. The original set of Takahashi brothers looked, if possible, even more disappointed than they'd done earlier on. Even Kizuna seem to share the same concern.

'That was a terrible race,' Ryosuke sentenced mercilessly.

'Dad,' Seisuke said trying to defend his brother, 'Aniki won, he beat me.'

'Yes, he did,' Ryosuke accepted, 'but that's part of the problem.'

'What do you mean?' Kyosuke asked sounding a little bitter.

'You've never lost a race, have you?' Ryosuke asked his elder son.

'No, I haven't,' Kyosuke replied trying not to sound smug.

'That's just too bad,' Ryosuke said, 'you see, the fact that you haven't lost a race yet doesn't tell me that you're strong but rather, that you've been picking your opponents poorly or, even worse, you've been relying largely on good luck.'

'Dad!' Seisuke protested, 'what Aniki did back there wasn't luck, it was skill!'

'Really?' Ryosuke asked him sounding sceptical, 'from what I saw on the GPS feed we were getting from our car's transponders, the race's outcome was a very close call. Too close for comfort, in fact. If your brother was really skilled he would have overtaken you at the start instead of wasting half of the race watching your back.'

'Dad…'

'Kyosuke,' Ryosuke said, 'the worst part about not you not having lost in a race before is that Akito has a huge advantage over you.'

'What advantage?' he asked.

'He hasn't lost a…' Seisuke started then, he corrected himself and said, 'I see…'

'About time you did,' Keisuke said looking a little relieved.

'Winning all the time gives you a false sense of security,' Ryosuke explained, 'whereas losing is a positive experience for a racer since it pushes him to get even better. Akito knows very well what it feels like to see someone else crossing the finish line before he does and that's what fuels his determination not to let it happen more often than it's absolutely necessary. Neither of you have that kind of wisdom yet.'

'Also,' Keisuke added, 'I'm pretty sure he'll race you wanting to beat you more than anything, can you say the same?'

'Er…'

'Answer the question honestly,' Ryosuke said, 'do you seriously want to beat Akito?'

Kyosuke remained silent while he considered his answer then, very slowly, he nodded once.

'I do.'

'Do you really?' Keisuke tried again.

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied sounding even more determined.

'Are you going to race him with all you got?' Ryosuke challenged him.

'I will,' Kyosuke replied, 'I will race him with all I got, I swear.'

'Alright,' Ryosuke said and for the first time that evening, his lips curved into a smile, 'that'll be all for tonight.'

'Dad,' Seisuke asked, 'what did you mean about us picking our rivals poorly?'

'I meant just that,' Ryosuke replied, 'I think that from now on, you guys need to get better at picking which teams you'll race. So far I feel that you've been wasting too much time racing with people you knew well and that's something that you can't keep doing if you want to really challenge yourselves.'

'What do you suggest?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Survey the teams you race against more carefully,' he replied, 'also, don't accept just about every challenge you get, be more selective and only race against teams who have a strong reputation. Friendly races are okay as a means to entertain yourselves but if you really want to improve, you'll need to face much stronger rivals.'

'I understand,' Kyosuke said.

'Good,' Ryosuke replied.

He was clearly going to dismiss them when, as if fate was trying to point them the way towards the right direction, they heard the unmistakable sound made by yet another relic of a car, this time, it was the venerably old Toyota AE86 which they saw coming up the road which lead to the city of Shibukawa. They saw that Akito himself was sitting behind the wheel with Takumi sitting next to him.

'It's three o'clock,' Keisuke muttered as the Toyota stopped in front of them.

'Hey,' Takumi said while he rolled the window down, 'you guys are still here?'

'Yeah, sorry,' Keisuke replied, 'we're leaving now.'

'It's fine,' Takumi said, 'you could stay if you want.'

'No,' Ryosuke replied, 'we got our fair share of time, now it's your turn.'

'Alright,' Takumi said.

'Akito,' Seisuke asked, 'where is your new car?'

'What new car?' Akito replied very obviously playing dumb.

'Right,' Seisuke smirking sarcastically.

Akito noticed the FC and the FD and, speaking to his two best friends, he asked them:

'Don't tell me you've been driving those?'

'Maybe,' Kyosuke replied.

'What if we have?' Seisuke challenged him, 'do you think you're the only one allowed to drive monster cars?'

'Not at all,' Akito replied, 'I'm just happy to see that you're taking this as seriously as I hoped you would.'

With that, he engaged the clutch and inserted the first gear before moving the car up again.

'I've got a lot of work to do too,' he said as he drove away, 'I'll see you soon.'

'That punk,' Seisuke muttered shaking his head in disbelief.

'Well,' an amused Ryosuke said, 'you can't say that your opponent is lacking in motivation.'

'I wonder if he really has got his new car,' Seisuke commented.

'He probably has,' Keisuke replied, 'and if Takumi's busy training him, guess who's busy doing its tuning?'

'You don't think…' Seisuke started.

'I agree with you,' Ryosuke said to his younger brother, 'and in that case, we really have a formidable opponent.'

Kyosuke didn't say anything to that but, noticing his own tension going up, he knew that by challenging Akito to this race, he might have woken up a giant he should have left alone. It was too late for second thoughts: the battle was on and the only thing he could do was to prepare himself the best possible way to beat his strongest rival yet.

While the Takahashi made their way back home, Akito was driving up Mt Akina's pass when his father said:

'You really meant what you said?'

'About what?' Akito asked.

'About the fact that you're happy to see Kyosuke taking it so seriously,' Takumi replied.

'Of course I am,' Akito said, 'I would hate to think he's taking me lightly because of my lack of experience.'

'But that means Kyosuke might beat you,' Takumi said, 'are you prepared for that?'

'Weirdly enough, I am,' he replied.

'Weirdly enough?'

'Yes,' Akito confirmed, 'Dad, the way I see it, I have everything to win and very little to lose.'

'Speak clearly son,' Takumi said not being in the mood for riddles.

'If I win the race,' Akito explained, 'Kyosuke will accept me into his team, if I lose, he won't. Since I'm not a member of the Golden Arrows, if I do lose the race nothing will really change for me.'

'And you won't mind not being in the Golden Arrows?' Takumi asked sounding incredulous.

'Of course I will,' Akito said, 'I never said I was planning on losing, did I?'

'That's true,' Takumi replied chuckling softly, 'in that case, we have to start by improving your times.'

'What's wrong with them?' Akito asked.

'Everything,' Takumi replied, 'you're still slower than I was.'

'Must you remind me every single time?' Akito asked sounding a little annoyed.

'Yes,' Takumi replied, 'until the day you beat my record.'

'Have you beaten Grandpa's?' Akito asked feeling a little vindictive.

'No,' Takumi admitted, 'but I don't think anyone will ever do that.'

'That's true,' Akito reflected.

'Enough talking,' Takumi said, 'can't you hear it? The 86 is getting bored.'

Grinning at his father, Akito pressed the pedal of the ancient Toyota enjoying as he always did the strong vibrations coming from the front of the car while the monster under the bonnet roared as loudly as the wildest beast. Tackling the following corner, he allowed himself to briefly imagine what the V-86 would sound like after his grandfather was done with it before he focused his attention back on the infamous pass.

For the following hour, he listened to his father as he offered very rare pieces of advice on how to sharpen his lines, allowing him to cut tenths of seconds here and there. He also got precious pointers on the less known overtaking spots and the manoeuvres needed to pass the opponent with his father telling him about his own past races on the pass. Akito was so enthralled by it all that he felt very bad when, at around four o'clock, his father told him that it was time to go back home.

'Already?' Akito asked.

'Yes,' Takumi replied, 'you do have to go to school.'

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, he said:

'Alright, but promise me that we'll do this as often as you can.'

'I don't think that's a good idea,' Takumi said.

'Why not?' a horrified Akito asked.

'Because now that you have your own car,' Takumi replied, 'we should wait until it's ready to practice with it.'

'But…'

'Don't worry,' Takumi reassured him, 'if I know your grandfather as well as I think I do, I'm sure he'll give you plenty of time, as he calls it, for you and your machine to get to know each other. You'll have lots of time to practice for your race against Kyosuke.'

'Alright,' Akito accepted, 'does that mean I can no longer use the 86 to practice?'

'Who said that?' Takumi asked him.

'But you just said…'

'I said that I won't give you any more pointers until you get your own car,' Takumi explained.

'So, can I continue driving the 86?' Akito asked now sounding hopeful.

'Of course you can,' Takumi said and then, something made him smirk and add, 'like I said, you do need the practice.'

'Dad!' Akito protested.

Takumi just laughed at him before he told him to turn round so that they could head home.

With the two clans taking it in turns to practice on Mt Akina, a full month went by and on the afternoon of the fourth Monday of October, just two days after his much longed eighteenth birthday, Akito was onboard the tiny Honda Jazz the driving school had provided him with to complete his driving test. The instructor, an old balding man in his sixties, watched him while he skilfully parked the car in the allocated space within the required three manoeuvres. Then, as requested, Akito turned the engine off and said:

'What do I have to do next?'

'Nothing else,' the man replied.

'Oh,' Akito gasped suddenly feeling a little concerned, 'does that mean that we're done?'

'Yes, we are,' the man said, 'I must say that, in all of my years as an instructor, I've never felt any more useless.'

'What…'

'I haven't taught you anything really,' the man said sounding a little depressed.

'I'm sorry,' Akito felt the need to say.

'It's okay,' the man said, 'I mean, it's just ridiculous the agency wanted you to take the test in the first place.'

'Sir?'

'I mean,' the man continued, 'you're a GP2 racer, what am I supposed to teach to someone like you?'

'Sir,' Akito said hoping to make him feel better, 'you really are good instructor and you're very patient too.'

'Thank you for saying that,' the man said looking grateful.

'You're welcome,' Akito replied politely.

'One more thing before I let you go,' the man said giving him a pen, 'could you please sign this for me?'

'Sir?' Akito asked, 'I thought I had signed all the forms I needed to sign.'

'This is not a form,' he said pointing at the small blank piece of paper, 'it's an autograph, for my son.'

'Your son, sir?' Akito asked finding the situation to be more than a little weird.

'Yes,' the man replied, 'he's a fan of yours and he refused to believe me when I said I was your instructor.'

'Ah, I see,' Akito said allowing himself a chuckle, 'in that case, what's his name?'

'Ichiro,' the man replied, 'with the kanji for one and son,' he added.

'Alright,' Akito said and, taking the piece of paper, he scribbled his own name followed by "To Ichiro."

'Thank you very much,' the man said taking it back, 'and good luck for the next race.'

'You're welcome,' Akito replied, 'and I'll do my best.'

By the time a confused and slightly embarrassed Akito joined his father at the Driving License Agency's waiting room, he found that Ryoko had also returned from her own test and, judging by her happy expression, she too had managed to get her license.

'How did it go?' she asked him.

'It hurts you even need to ask,' a serious Akito replied then, with a huge grin appearing on his face, he showed them the plastic card.

'Well done,' Takumi said patting him on the shoulder, 'now, let's go home: you're driving!'

'Oh yes,' Akito replied feeling even happier than the day he had sat on his GP2 car for the first time ever.

On the way home and for some bizarre reason he refused to explain even later, Takumi asked him to stop briefly so that he could buy something then, giving it to Ryoko, he asked her to please give it to Kyosuke whenever she saw him. The poor girl felt very puzzled by the odd request but she understood everything a few minutes later when she entered her house, ready to announce that she was no longer the only member of the Takahashi family without a driving license. Happily, she found all of them gathered at the living room waiting for her.

'Oh!' Kyoko gasped pointing at what her daughter was carrying in her hands, 'did Akito give them to you?'

'Did he get them as a consolation for you for not passing your test?' Seisuke asked smirking at her.

'Idiot,' Ryoko said, 'for your information, I did pass the test and this,' she added looking at Kyosuke, 'I was asked by Takumi-san to give it to you, on Akito's behalf.'

'Me?' Kyosuke asked feeling very embarrassed and a little weirded out.

'Oh, I see,' Ryosuke said smiling at his son.

'Why would Akito give Aniki a bunch of roses?' Seisuke asked looking positively freaked out.

'I bet there's a card in it,' a grinning Keisuke said.

'And I bet you anything I know exactly what it says,' Ryosuke added.

'There's a card,' Ryoko confirmed peeking into the bouquet.

Taking the bunch of red roses from his cousin, Kyosuke found a little rectangular envelop and, carefully taking it from in between the thorny stems, he extracted a white card and saw what it was written on it. He read it out loud:

'Mt Akina - Tuesday October 31st – 10pm.'

'This is it,' Keisuke said sounding pretty excited, 'it's Takahashi vs Fujiwara all over again.'

The countdown had started.

_To be continued… _


	65. Chapter Sixty Four

**Golden Arrows**

_Chapter Sixty Four_

On the last Saturday evening of October 2023, fourteen cars were lined up at the final straight at the top of Mt Akagi while their drivers enjoyed the view from the city lights. Even though he did his best to appear relaxed and confident, all members of the Golden Arrows team knew that their leader was barely coping with the tension caused by his upcoming battle with Akito Fujiwara and following Seisuke's and Kizuna's example, they all had been treading carefully while being around him. One of them had clearly missed that memo.

'So,' Junya said speaking unnecessarily loudly, 'the brat issued the challenge himself.'

'Junya-san…' Shinji tried to stop him.

'He sure has a lot of guts,' Junya continued and his blatantly insincere compliment attracted Kyosuke's attention.

'Junya,' he said trying to stay calm, 'I won't say it again: leave Akito alone.'

'I just can't understand how you can put up with his cheek,' Junya said.

'He's not being cheeky,' Kyosuke replied.

'That's right,' Seisuke added.

'But didn't he send you a bunch of roses? Junya asked looking a little disgusted, 'what was with that?'

'It's a private joke between his family and ours,' Kyosuke explained still trying to be patient.

'Whatever,' Junya said, 'I still think he's light years too soon to challenge you like that.'

'Junya…'

'You're racing him on Tuesday evening, right?' Junya asked him.

'Yes, but…'

'I think I should race him first,' Junya suddenly announced.

'No way,' Kyosuke said firmly.

'Why not?' Junya challenged him, 'if I beat him again, he won't be really worthy of your time, will he?'

'Junya,' Kyosuke warned him once.

'I mean,' Junya continued recklessly, 'it's not like he's that good, the way I passed him that day…'

'Junya,' Kyosuke warned him twice.

'…I'm pretty sure that brat hasn't improved that much since then,' Junya finished, 'and I should…'

'Shut up,' Kyosuke finally snapped.

'I'm just saying…'

'I said: shut it,' Kyosuke barked, 'you wouldn't last five minutes with him!'

'What?' Junya asked looking as if he'd been slapped, 'I beat him once! You were there!'

'I was there,' Kyosuke finally exploded, 'and I saw him letting you overtake him.'

Several shocked gasps were heard, including Junya's.

'You didn't beat him,' Kyosuke said, 'he let you pass him naively thinking that you would leave him alone.'

'What are you talking about?' Junya said looking both hurt and confused.

'He thought that if you thought you had beaten him you would finally get over yourself,' Kyosuke told him.

'Obviously he was wrong,' Seisuke added sounding even more upset than his older brother.

'You're lying,' Junya said.

'Why would I?' Kyosuke challenged him, 'Junya, I'm tired of having the same old conversation with you, I…'

'That fucking brat,' Junya said obviously ignoring his leader, 'I'll…'

With a glacial tone, Kyosuke practically barked at him:

'If you dare hurting Akito in any way, I swear to God I'll make you regret you ever met me.'

'Kyo..'

'Do you understand me?' Kyosuke hissed angrily.

'Yes,' Junya replied with a smaller voice than usual.

'This is the most important race of my whole life,' Kyosuke explained, 'and I will let nothing and no one interfere with it, is that clear?'

'I…'

'Give me your word as a man that you won't get in the way,' Kyosuke demanded.

'Kyosuke…'

'Your word Junya,' a dead serious Kyosuke insisted, 'give me your word that you'll stay out of this,' the older man looked at his leader for a few moments during which everyone held their breath then, very slowly, he nodded a couple of times, 'alright,' Kyosuke finished looking a little less tense, 'let's all go home now.'

A collective sigh of relief followed that and soon, they all copied their leader as he made his way to his car.

'Geez,' Masato whispered to Izawa while they walked to their rides, 'I've never seen Leader getting so angry before.'

'This comes to show how important this race is for him,' Izawa commented.

'I hope that idiot doesn't do anything to ruin it,' Masato commented.

'Me and you both, mate,' Izawa replied before climbing into his Integra.

A few minutes later and while they drove down Mt Akagi's pass, Kizuna contacted Seisuke via their radios.

'What's wrong?' he asked her.

'I just wanted to ask you if we have a Plan B,' she said.

'Plan B?' Seisuke asked.

'In case Kyosuke loses the race,' Kizuna finally dared to say.

'We can't have that option yet,' Seisuke replied, 'Aniki is nervous enough as it is, if he thinks we even remotely consider the chance he might lose, his resolve might just collapse. We need to stay strong for him.'

'I agree,' Kizuna said.

'He'll be fine,' Seisuke said, 'he's done everything he can to prepare for this race and he knows that.'

'We know that too,' Kizuna pointed out.

'And even though he's racing Akito,' Seisuke said, 'I honestly think Aniki has a good chance to beat him.'

'Well,' Kizuna said, 'if anyone can beat Akito, that's your older brother.'

'That's exactly right,' Seisuke replied proudly.

On the wee hours of Tuesday morning a mere twenty hours away from the scheduled time for the race, the now black and white Toyota V-86 could be seen darting down Mt Akina while its driver was having the thrill of his life while trying to find his new car's limits noticing with pleasure that he still was quite far from them.

'This feels great, Grandpa,' he said, thinking out loud.

The car had been brilliant when he'd first driven it a few weeks ago but now, it was just so responsive that Akito felt like the car was just an extension of his own body. The suspensions were simply perfect, the engine produced a dangerously powerful tune and the steering wheel was as precise as a Swiss watch.

The improvements didn't end with the mechanical parts for Akito had managed to master quite a few of the tricks his father had tried to teach him and he was now fairly confident that, asides from the two living legends which were his father and grandfather, no one else knew Mt Akina's pass as well as he did.

Akito had never felt more confident in his life.

'Don't get cocky,' he warned himself imitating his father's voice.

No, he wouldn't get cocky. He simply couldn't afford to. Not when his rival's name was Kyosuke Takahashi.

Reaching the bottom of the pass, Akito drove the car back to the Fujiwara Tofu Shop where he found his father and grandfather standing outside waiting for him. He then parked the car right behind his father's 86.

'So,' Bunta asked, 'everything's ready?'

'Yes,' Akito replied.

'What do you think of the car's settings?' Takumi asked him.

'Let's put it this way,' Akito replied, 'if I do lose the race, it won't be the car's fault.'

'That's quite the statement,' Bunta laughed.

'Well,' Akito said, 'it's quite the car, too, you know?'

'It is,' Takumi agreed.

'Dad, Grandpa,' he then said, 'thanks a lot for all you've done for me. I know it'll probably be a one-off thing.'

'Don't mention it,' Takumi replied.

'Just don't go and crash the car on your first race, okay?' Bunta asked him.

'Grandpa!' Akito exclaimed with such a horrified expression on his face that both older men started laughing.

Akito shook his head and, glancing one last time at the V-86, he silently hoped he would never ever crash it.

Three hours before the race, Kyosuke had his computer plugged into the port of his RZ-1 while he checked that all the figures, charts and diagnostic stats were exactly as he'd left them before dinner. Kizuna and Seisuke joined him at that moment and, seeing what he was doing, they refrained from pointing out that there was no way anything in the Mazda could have gone wrong while sitting quietly inside the garage.

'Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'we're ready, you?'

'Nearly,' Kyosuke replied without looking away from the screen.

'Don't you have to go to get Kaori?' Kizuna asked Seisuke.

'No,' the guy replied losing his smile for a fraction of a second, 'she's busy tonight.'

'Ah,' Kizuna gasped eyeing Kyosuke nervously, 'we'll go whenever you're done, okay?'

'Sure,' he replied.

Just then, they saw Ryoko entering the garage with the keys of her new little red roadster in her hand.

'You're still here?' she asked them.

'You're going now?' Seisuke asked her back.

'Yes,' she replied, 'Akito's waiting for me.'

'I can't believe you won't tell us anything about his car,' Seisuke accused her.

'I don't really know much about it,' Ryoko replied calmly, 'and even if I did, I wouldn't tell you.'

'Ah, I forgot,' Seisuke said a little sarcastically, 'you're in Team Akito.'

'Of course,' Ryoko replied giving him a sweet smile, 'Team Kyosuke has enough fans as it is.'

With that and without waiting for an answer, she climbed behind the wheel of her Mazda and was off.

'Traitor,' Seisuke muttered.

'Hey,' Kizuna said, 'it's to be expected. I wouldn't like being in her shoes right now.'

'What do you mean?' Seisuke asked her.

'Can you imagine what it's been like for her knowing what she knew about what you guys were doing with your father and uncle and not being able to tell Akito?'

'Who says she hasn't told him?' Seisuke asked then, seeing her look, he added, 'I know, she wouldn't do it.'

'That's right…'

The rest of her sentence got interrupted by Kyosuke's phone's ring tone.

'Hello?' the Golden Arrows leader replied.

Kizuna and Seisuke stared at him as his eyes widened with shock.

'What did you just say?' they heard him asking then, he said, 'I'll kill him, I swear I'll…'

'Kyosuke?' Kizuna asked frowning in concern.

'Don't worry,' Kyosuke continued still talking to the person on the phone, 'I'll deal with it.'

He then pressed the button to tend the call and, taking a shaky, furious breath, he finally looked at them.

'What's happened now?' Seisuke asked.

'Everyone knows,' Kyosuke replied tensely, 'Masato just got a call from one of his mates who is at Mt Akina. Apparently there is a huge crowd gathering up there because someone has spread the rumour that the guy I'm going to be racing tonight is Akito Fujiwara and now they're all curious to see a GP2 driver in action.'

'You don't think it was…' Kizuna started.

'Junya?' Kyosuke asked, 'you bet it was him. When I see him, I…'

Once again, the ringing of Kyosuke's phone stopped the conversation. This time, it was Akito himself calling.

'Akito,' Kyosuke said, 'I take you heard.'

'Yes,' the young racer replied, 'I spoke to Izawa while Masato was calling you.'

'What do you want to do?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Don't worry about it,' Akito replied, 'Ruben's got my back.'

'Ruben?'

'Yes,' Akito replied, 'I've told him about the situation to ask for his opinion and he told me that if the Federation finds out, he'll say that I was with him at a Halloween party in some restaurant in Roppongi. He's actually there right now and has asked a few of his friends to corroborate the story if necessary.'

'Are you sure about this?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Kyosuke,' Akito said firmly, 'I've been waiting for this day since forever. We're racing: end of the story.'

'Alright,' Kyosuke said allowing himself a smile, 'I knew you'd say something like that.'

'You weren't thinking of running away, were you?' Akito half-joked.

'Never,' Kyosuke replied.

'Good,' Akito said, 'I'll see you in a couple of hours.'

'You will,' Kyosuke replied. Ending the call, he looked at Kizuna and Seisuke and said, 'let's go.'

'What about Junya?' Seisuke asked him.

'I'll deal with him in due time,' Kyosuke replied, 'he won't be pleased to see that his plan hasn't worked.'

'What do you mean?' Kizuna asked.

'Let's just say that we aren't the only good friends Akito has,' Kyosuke said refusing to elaborate.

Shortly after the three of them climbed into their cars and while they drove them to the Golden Arrows usual meeting point in Mt Akagi, Ryoko parked her little roadster just outside the Fujiwara residence. She hadn't even got out of her car when she saw a very happy Akito rushing down the short flight of stairs outside the front door to meet her.

'Hey,' she greeted him with a smile.

'Hi,' he said giving her a quick peck on her lips, 'you're early!'

'I know,' Ryoko said then, lowering her voice for some reason, she asked, 'listen, I was thinking…'

'Oh,' Akito gasped not entirely liking the sound of that.

'…you said your parents won't be come when we come back from the race,' Ryoko said.

'Yeah,' Akito replied, 'they're off with Haruko to the midnight party Aunt Mariko's organised, why?'

'Well,' Ryoko said sounding oddly shy, 'I was thinking that…if we're on our own…and if you win…we…'

Akito's eyes went wide with realisation.

'Ryoko,' he said, his throat feeling parched, 'are you saying what I think you're saying?'

'Well,' she half muttered, 'it's been a while that I was trying to find a way for us to…you know…'

'And you tell me this now?' Akito asked, his voice sounding unnaturally high pitched.

'I just thought it'd be a good chance,' Ryoko replied, 'since we'll be alone in the house and…'

'Wait,' Akito stopped her, 'this is a tactic, isn't it?'

'What?'

'It's a tactic,' he repeated, 'you're trying to distract me from the race so that your cousin wins.'

'I would never do that!' Ryoko exclaimed looking very offended, 'Akito, how can you even…'

'Alright, alright,' Akito hurried to say realising his mistake, 'I'm terribly sorry, I really am.'

'Idiot,' she said pouting a bit.

'That, I am,' he confirmed then, getting very serious, he said, 'did you really mean it? Can we…'

Ryoko just nodded.

'Wow,' Akito gasped, 'okay,' he added trying to calm himself down, 'okay,' he repeated.

'Let's go in,' Ryoko laughed softly taking his hand, 'your parents will get suspicious if we stay out here.'

'Yeah, let's do that,' Akito said ready to follow her to the end of the world.

Meanwhile, the two RZ-1s and the 350Z entered the parking area and for the first time in a long time, they found that most of the members of the Golden Arrows were already there waiting for them. Including Junya. Kyosuke was making a beeline towards him when Masato intercepted him.

'He says it wasn't him,' the guy told him.

'What?'

'I didn't say anything,' Junya said looking a little scared, 'I swear Kyosuke, I gave you my word, didn't I?'

'Who did it then?' Kyosuke asked.

'I have no idea,' Junya replied.

'Please, Kyosuke-san,' Shinji intervened, 'he's telling the truth, I've been with him the whole time.'

Kyosuke looked from the diminutive Shinji then back at Junya before he nodded and said:

'Alright, I believe you. It doesn't matter though, Akito's got his back well covered.'

'What do you mean?' Junya dared to ask.

'That's none of your business,' Kyosuke asked too tense and tired of the older guy to care about diplomacy.

'Alright guys,' Seisuke said trying to clear the air a bit, 'let's just get in the cars and go to Mt Akina, okay?'

'That's a very good idea,' Kizuna agreed.

Without exchanging a word with anyone, Kyosuke just climbed back into his Mazda and soon, all fourteen members of the Golden Arrows started driving out of the car park. They had barely covered a few hundred meters on the expressway when, coming from the general frequency, they heard a very familiar greeting:

'Awesome One to All Arrows, do you copy?'

'Kazuya?' a surprised Kyosuke asked.

'Leader,' the guy admonished him, 'what happened to our wonderful call signs?'

'Awesome One,' Seisuke said sounding as surprised as his brother, 'when the hell did you get back?'

'Just now, Doctor,' Kazuya said, 'and if you guys slow down a bit, I might be able to catch up with you.'

'Out of training?' a smiling Kizuna asked.

'Affirmative, Lady Z,' Kazuya admitted and hearing a few radios cracking with laughter, he added, 'if you guys lived in Oxford like I do, you too would get out of training. I swear, the city council there hates cars as much as I hate their stupid public transportation system.'

'Now, that's saying something,' Seisuke laughed.

'Okay,' Kyosuke said, 'let's slow down a bit.'

Kazuya's sudden return helped improving the mood so much that all fifteen of their radios was soon filled with chatter while they kept firing questions at him, starting by the reason why he had decided to come back all of a sudden and without giving any of them any warning.

'You didn't think I would miss this race, did you?' he asked them.

'Of course not,' Kyosuke said then, smiling a bit, he said, 'welcome back, Awesome One.'

'It's good to be back, Leader,' he replied, 'even if it's just for a short while.'

'When are you leaving?' Seisuke asked.

'On Sunday,' Kazuya replied, 'I have my mid-terms next week.'

'That sucks,' Seisuke commented.

'Big time,' Kazuya confirmed, 'but I have good news: if all goes well, I'll be back in Japan in June next year.'

'For good?' Kyosuke asked him.

'Yes,' Kazuya replied, 'and if you still want me, I'd like to return full time to the team.'

'As if you need to ask,' Seisuke said, 'right, Leader?'

'Affirmative, Doctor,' Kyosuke replied.

Half an hour later and after having driven up Mt Akina, feeling alarmed with the sheer amount of people they saw standing practically everywhere, Kyosuke parked his RZ-1 alongside one of the two long guardrails which separated the two outer lanes from the main road by the old TV and Radio aerial tower.

'It's good to see you again,' Kyosuke said giving Kazuya a one armed hug.

'I think you two have grown up,' Kazuya complained feeling towered by the two brothers.

'Nah,' Seisuke said giving him a quick hug too, 'I think it's you who is shrinking, are you eating properly?'

'Yes, Mum, I eat three square meals a day,' Kazuya replied with a smirk.

'I'd love to see what you think a square meal is,' Seisuke countered.

'I'd rather not,' Kizuna said looking a little disgusted.

'What's with the long faces?' Kazuya asked to his cousin Junya and Shinji.

'It doesn't matter,' Junya grunted, 'Uncle Masaki didn't say anything about your return.'

'I know,' Kazuya said, 'I asked him not to say anything to anyone, not even your mother.'

Jun Morioka came along to greet his childhood friend and just as Kazuya was telling him once again that he was happy to have him in the team, Jun's ex-team leader joined the group looking like he was sorry about something.

'Takahashi,' Taro said talking to Kyosuke, 'I apologise.'

'For what?' Kyosuke asked him.

'One of my guys spoke too much,' Taro said, 'and the wrong people heard about your race with Fujiwara.'

'Really?' Kyosuke said.

'Yeah,' Taro replied, 'I'm really sorry, I hope this doesn't mess up with your plans or anything.'

'No,' Kyosuke reassured him, 'the race will go ahead as planned.'

'I'm glad to hear that,' Taro replied, 'we're all dying to see that kid in action.'

Saying this, he pointed at the other side of the road where half of the Myogi Devils and another half of the Nagano Alliance members were. Not far from there, Kyosuke saw the black Mitsubishi Zero belonging to Mitsuki Fujikawa and he even spotted a few the cars from the Tōdō Juku Racing School along with a few other familiar looking faces. If nothing else had, this made Kyosuke aware of how huge this race was becoming.

'Junya,' he then said, 'I owe you an apology too.'

'Kyosuke…'

'I'm sorry I snapped at you,' Kyosuke said.

'It's alright,' Junya replied, 'I…'

He never finished the sentence for, right then, the sound of an unknown engine came from down the road.

'He's here!' Seisuke exclaimed.

'How do you know it's him?' Jun asked him.

His answer presented itself with the shape of a beautiful white and black Toyota V-86, the engine of which made a truly terrifying sound. Kyosuke would have fallen onto his butt if it wasn't because he had his car right behind him to support his weight. At long last, he saw the machine he would be up against.

'Hey guys,' Akito said while he and Ryoko climbed out of the car.

'Wow,' Kyosuke gasped, 'where in the hell did you get that monster from? Did you know they only made four hundred of them?'

'My grandfather got it from one of his contacts,' Akito explained, 'but I paid for it.'

'His contacts? Which kind of contacts does he have?' Seisuke asked joining in the conversation.

'I haven't got a clue but if you find out, please let me know,' Akito replied smirking.

'Yeah, well, typical of your grandfather,' Kyosuke said laughing softly staring at Akito's V-86 with his eyes full of admiration.

'I can't believe this day has finally arrived,' Akito said sounding very eager.

'Me neither,' Kyosuke replied.

'Take it easy, hey Mr Pro,' Seisuke said punching Akito's shoulder playfully.

'Hey, I'm not the one who hasn't lost a street race in three years,' Akito commented.

'No, you're the one who's won a GP-2 race before getting the driving license,' Seisuke countered.

'Yeah but you guys already are street racers, I'm just trying to become one,' Akito countered.

'Hey guys, are you going to be talking all night or what?' Kizuna said getting visibly impatient.

'You're right,' Kyosuke said, 'let's get started,' with this, he kissed Kizuna and then walked towards his RZ-1.

'Be careful, okay?' Ryoko said.

Akito gave her a peck on her cheek and, grinning at her, he said:

'I'll be back before you have time to miss me.'

Soon enough, the two cars were lined up and ready to start the race. Kyosuke noticed that Akito was so focused on the race that he had even failed to notice Kazuya there. All the better, he thought with a smirk.

From inside their cars, they saw Seisuke standing there, ready to do the countdown.

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!

The battle had started.

Both cars took off unbelievably fast and, just as everyone predicted, Kyosuke moved to let Akito take the lead of the race. The last thing they saw with their own eyes was Akito going around the corner doing his best to leave Kyosuke behind. After that, the cars disappeared from their sights forcing everyone to follow the race using the GPS systems on their phones.

Down the road, Akito was trying to widen the distance which separated him from Kyosuke by imposing a nearly suicidal speed on the race. In spite of that, he kept having the distinct impression that the Golden Arrows leader was somehow playing with him and that he could catch up with him anytime he liked. Akito knew that it was time to get serious.

Akito tackled corner after corner like a maniac, changing his entry and exit lines at every single one of them and constantly changing his rhythm making it almost impossible for Kyosuke to predict what he'd do next. In all the weeks of training, Kyosuke had never driven quite so fast and he started to wonder if it had been wise to follow his father's advice when he'd told him to decrease the amount of power in the rotary engine. Right now, he felt it had been a bad idea, especially since he had no idea of what roared under the V-86's bonnet.

As the two cars approached the final turns before the five consecutive hairpins, Kyosuke also noticed that he was losing a lot of grip on the front tyres of his car and, just then, he realised that he had fallen in Akito's carefully laid trap. Fighting to keep control of the RZ-1 he managed to make it to the five hairpins and there he saw that Akito was also moving to lower the tyres of his Toyota into the gutter. It was using this old system that both cars got around the first hairpin.

Inside the V-86, Akito saw Kyosuke copying his technique and while that fact didn't shock him, what made him confused was seeing that the guy did the same again and again at the following three of the five hairpins. Then, just as they approached the fourth, he went to hook the tyres once more when he saw the RZ-1 going wide into the corner, levelling with the Toyota and not giving Akito enough time to react, Kyosuke pushed his Mazda ahead of the Toyota.

'Shit,' Akito gasped.

Flooring the accelerator out of the hairpin, he followed Kyosuke into the fifth and when they left that one behind too, he started thinking of the places where he could overtake Kyosuke while doing his best to keep up with the guy. That wasn't such an easy feat and Akito could see the reason why Kyosuke was one of the best racers of the region. But if Kyosuke was an accomplished street racer, he was a professional driver. Thanks to that, Akito managed to keep up with the Mazda with relative ease, following him around corners, darting along the straights all the way to the part of the course from where one could see the first city lights. It was there where Akito did his first attempt at making Kyosuke feel a little less confident.

'What is he…'

Akito had just veered outwards as if he were going to overtake him but then, at the last possible minute, he seemed to give up the effort. Kyosuke felt rather unnerved when he saw that the guy did the same thing after the next corner and just as he prepared for the worst, Akito seemed to change his mind again remaining behind. Confused by this, Kyosuke kept on driving his car onto the part of the road where the two lanes became three and, just then, Akito went too wide, almost copying the move Seisuke had pulled on him while racing with the FC and the FD but Akito did something different and entirely outrageous: after opening up his racing line, he made his V-86 slide almost out of control and, just as Kyosuke thought Akito was definitely going to crash against the wall, the Toyota changed trajectory all of a sudden, crossing its racing line with that of the RZ-1. The manoeuvre forced Kyosuke to slow down so suddenly he felt like his face would come off.

'Fucking nutter,' he whispered while catching up his breath.

In the panic not to lose control of his car, he failed to see the back of the white and black V-86 driving away from him getting across the finish line a few seconds before the RZ-1 did.

The people at the galleries couldn't believe their own eyes:

Kyosuke Takahashi had just lost his first race.

The Mazda stopped right by the side of the Toyota and then the two drivers climbed out of their cars.

'You're mental, did you know that?' Kyosuke said trying to sound angry, failing miserably.

'Yeah, people say that about me,' Akito said grinning.

Kyosuke got back inside his car and, taking the two stickers he had prepared for the occasion, he said:

'I think these are yours.'

Akito looked at what Kyosuke was giving him: two Golden Arrows stickers.

'Thanks,' he muttered overcome with emotion. He took the decals with slightly shaky hands.

'Well, you're one of us now,' Kyosuke told him, 'put them on and let's drive back up: the guys will want to celebrate the fact that we've got a pro driving with us.'

When the two cars showed up at the summit, Kyosuke almost laughed seeing the shocked expressions on the members of his team. His badly bruised ego felt a little soothed by the fact that at least some of those guys believed him capable of beating Akito. They really were too naïve, he thought while looking at his team affectionately. He then saw his brother coming towards him with the very obvious intention of saying something to make him feel better.

'Hey,' Seisuke predictably said, 'since Akito's a member of our team now, technically speaking, we're still undefeated.

'That's right,' Kyosuke replied, 'and the way that crazy bastard drives that V-86 of his, I'm sure that we'll remain that way for a very, very long time,' and that wasn't the only thing he was certain of, Kyosuke thought, because his father had been one hundred percent right: losing was very painful and now he had experienced that pain, he would never lose ever again.

The celebrations for the newest and final addition to the Golden Arrows continued for a while. During this time, Junya fought to recover after he had witnessed the brat beating the man who he had believed to be unbeatable. He looked so stunned that Shinji even went as far as suggesting him to leave his S18 and go home with his little Honda instead. A furious Junya rejected the idea and, instead, he decided to keep a close eye on his new target's movements.

Unaware that he was being watched, Akito somehow managed to get Ryoko away from her best friend Yayoi and convince her that it was time to go back home. Unfortunately for him, when they did arrive at the Fujiwara residence, they saw a car parked just in front of the house's garage which most definitely wasn't supposed to be there: his father's ancient 86.

'Maybe they took your mother's Micra,' Ryoko said.

'Yeah,' Akito replied trying to convince himself.

Leaving his beloved V-86, he stole a quick glance at the new set of stickers it now sported feeling his heart bursting with pride knowing that he, Akito Fujiwara, could now call himself a Golden Arrow. The joy was short lived when, getting closer to the house's entrance, he heard the voices from his parents as they talked about something.

'Hey,' Akito greeted forcing himself to smile, 'what are you guys doing home?'

'Hello son,' Takumi said, 'we had to come back a bit earlier because your sister was feeling poorly.'

'Is she okay?' Akito asked, his big-brotherly worry temporarily overriding his profound disappointment.

'Yes,' Natsuki replied, 'she's got an upset stomach, I think she's eaten too much candy.'

'Ah,' Akito gasped.

'So,' Takumi said, 'how did it go?'

'I won,' Akito replied simply.

'So, you're in that Arrows team?' Natsuki asked him.

'I am,' Akito replied.

'And you were coming with him to celebrate?' Takumi asked looking at Ryoko.

'Er…'

'Well,' a blissfully oblivious Natsuki said, 'since we're all here and Haruko's been tucked in bed, why don't we celebrate the four of us?'

'Yay,' Akito exclaimed trying miserably to sound enthusiastic.

'That sounds like fun,' a more reasonable Ryoko said to her future mother in law.

Feeling rather powerless, Akito decided to give it up, at least for now.

Of the five things he'd been waiting for ever since he had started dating Ryoko three years ago: becoming a professional driver, getting his driving license, a car to call his own, becoming a Golden Arrow and losing his virginity, he had already accomplished four of them. Akito decided that the fifth one would have to wait for just a bit longer. But what were a few more days when compared to three whole years?

_To be concluded…_


	66. Epilogue

**Golden Arrows**

_Epilogue _

Maebashi – May 2024

As with many things, everything started with a simple thing.

In Shinji's case it was a phone call.

The one Junya had received from Kyosuke Takahashi in the middle of the week. Shinji had tried not to think of the Golden Arrows ever since that day in winter when a pissed off Junya had decided that they were quitting from the team. Shinji had felt devastated when he'd heard the man who had rescued him from a terrible life telling him that he was putting an end to the best year and a half of his entire existence.

But then, on a sunny day of mid-May, the Golden Arrows leader had called Junya to tell him that Akito Fujiwara had accepted his challenge and that they were to meet the following Saturday at Mt Akina's summit. The race was scheduled for the usual ten o'clock in the evening and the two opponents would compete for the right to call the pass their own. Junya had looked ecstatic about it and had told him that it was time to think of a name.

'A name?' Shinji had asked.

'Yes,' Junya replied, 'we need a name for our team, don't we?'

'Ah, right', Shinji had replied trying to sound enthusiastic about the idea, 'Junya-san…'

'What?'

'I…' he hesitated, 'well, it's just that…Akito just got discharged from the hospital, didn't he?'

'What's your point?' Junya asked him.

'Well, he might not be fully recovered and…'

'That's irrelevant,' Junya said, 'besides, I doubt the hospital would let him go if he wasn't fit enough.'

'That's true,' Shinji replied more to humour him than anything else.

With this, Saturday had arrived and Shinji found himself leaving the apartment he still shared with Junya to go and meet with the first people he had ever been able to call his friends. Unfortunately, he hadn't seen many of them in months and, other than the occasional email from Yuta and Shige that he had to keep hidden from Junya, he had not had any contact whatsoever with the other members of the Golden Arrows.

He was so excited to see them again that even Junya noticed.

'That's right,' the guy said, 'tonight is the night we'll teach them a lesson they'll never forget.'

Shinji limited himself to giving him a nod which could have meant anything.

While Junya climbed into his newly tuned S18, Shinji walked to the car he had owned for less than half a year, a silver Honda Accord Coupe from 2014 that had replaced his first car, the yellow Honda Beat Kei-Car with which he had learned most of the techniques he could now replicate and enhance thanks to the upgrade.

Buying and fixing the ten year old CU2 had cost him quite a fair bit but he could now say that the car was fully his and that, as Junya himself had predicted, made all the difference in the world and even someone as short as he was felt like a giant while onboard his Accord. Turning on the I4, two point four litre engine, he felt even better.

Half an hour later, he followed Junya's Nissan up the infamous Mt Akina pass, finding that there were a few people already standing here and there behind the guardrails, especially around the five hairpins sector. But that was nothing when compared with the crowd he found up at the summit.

Together with the Golden Arrows, there were a few other members of teams like the Nagano Alliance and the Myogi Devils as well as other people Shinji didn't know. Following Junya's instructions, they parked not close enough to be seen directly but not too far that they wouldn't be able to walk the rest of the distance.

Shinji climbed out of his Accord and followed Junya towards the crowd. Then, he heard Akito's voice saying:

'Guys! Stop telling me to be careful, you're going to bring me bad luck!'

'That's right,' Junya said before Shinji could stop him, 'because you're going to need all the good luck in the world if you're hoping to beat me.'

Shinji felt a wave of anger at Junya for not giving him the chance to greet the members of the Golden Arrows properly.

'He can't help it,' he then heard Masato saying, 'he's just that much of an asshole.'

'Say that again!' Junya exclaimed.

At this point, things got pretty nasty when both Junya and Masato looked like they were ready to beat the crap out of each other.

'ENOUGH!' Kyosuke shouted so loudly that it startled Shinji.

'Aniki's right,' Seisuke said, 'let's just race, okay?'

'Yeah,' Akito replied.

'I know you've just been discharged from the hospital,' Junya said, 'but I'm not going to do you any favours.'

'I hope you're not,' the younger guy countered.

Once again, Shinji found himself thinking that he had never met anyone quite as fearless as Akito Fujiwara.

'Good,' Junya told him, 'you remember what's at stake here, don't you?'

'Yeah,' Akito replied, 'if I lose, Mt Akina's yours.'

'Exactly,' Junya said.

'But if I win,' Akito added all of a sudden, 'you'll have to do anything I ask you.'

That took Shinji aback but seeing Junya's expression, he knew his friend was also very surprised.

'Hell, why not,' Junya said nevertheless.

Having known him for several years, Shinji knew that there was a lot of insecurity behind that bravado and for the first time since he'd learned about the challenge, he found himself contemplating the chance that Akito might actually win the race. It wasn't that he didn't think the professional racer could not beat Junya, on the contrary, if was honest with himself, he knew that the outcome of this challenge was pretty clear.

The reason why he hadn't allowed himself to think about that chance was that he was scared. He was terrified of what would happen to Junya if he saw himself being defeated again by someone who, not only was six years his junior but also, in Junya's mind of course, had stolen his position within the Golden Arrows.

Shinji was so lost in his own thoughts that he missed a large part of the conversation. He only returned to the present when he felt Junya handing him his thick black linen jacket asking him to keep it in the Accord.

While Junya walked to his own car, Shinji watched Akito walking to his famous V-86 with Ryoko and seeing the way the younger man climbed in the car, much too slowly and as if he were trying not to hurt himself made Shinji feel a little sick. He had been right: there was no way Akito was okay, not physically at least.

And it wasn't a wonder, Shinji thought, after the horrific crash the poor guy had suffered in that GP2 race it was nothing short of a miracle he was alive and the fact that he was back behind the wheel less than two months after that was just impossible. For a moment there, he seriously considered calling the race off. Shinji even moved his foot and opened his mouth to do so when he heard the engines of three cars coming alive.

It was too late.

'Would you like to do the countdown?' Kyosuke told him sounding to Shinji as kind as ever.

'Can I?' Shinji asked.

'Of course,' Kyosuke replied, 'I'm sure that idiot would like to have you starting this race.'

'Okay,' Shinji said not even dreaming of defending Junya in front of the mighty Golden Arrows leader.

He then walked towards the front of the two cars and, for the first time, he noticed Seisuke's white RZ-1 placed right behind them.

Frowning a little, he decided not to pay attention to that and, instead, he lifted his arms to start the race.

'FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!'

At his "GO!" the V-86 just darted past Shinji so fast that he nearly fell flat onto his face. With dismay, Shinji saw that Junya was barely keeping up and that even Seisuke, with a much faster car, had a lot of trouble. It was then when his suspicions, his fears, turned into reality: injured or not, Akito Fujiwara was going to win this race.

'Hey,' Shinji heard Shige saying coming towards him with Yuta, 'how are you?'

'I'm alright,' he replied, 'you?'

'We've been missing you,' Yuta said, 'it's not as much fun without you in the team.'

'True, true,' Shige added shaking his slightly overgrown white hair, which still looked worryingly natural.

'Why don't you come back to the team?' Yuta asked him.

'I wish,' Shinji replied, 'it's just that…'

'Yeah, we know,' Shige said, 'Junya is scary.'

Shinji laughed softly thinking that if anything, Shige and Yuta were a lot more frightening than what Junya could ever hope to be, except, he reflected, that he had got to know the two guys and he knew now that they were actually rather cool if one steered the topic of conversation away from paranormal phenomena. It was for this reason that he talked to them about his car.

'I got it upgraded with a Mugen kit,' Shinji announced.

'Whoa,' Yuta exclaimed, 'how much does it make now?'

'We've tuned it up a bit,' Shinji said, 'so the horsepower is up to nearly three hundred.'

'That is pretty awesome,' he heard Kei saying.

'Good evening, Kei-san,' Shinji said feeling a little scared.

'Why so formal?' the guy asked, 'we were down to first name only weren't we?'

'Yeah,' Shinji replied, 'it's just that…'

'What happened was between that idiot and us,' Kei said, 'quitting the team the way he did had nothing to do with you.'

'I know,' Shinji said, 'but…'

'Kei's right,' Eiji intervened, 'you should come back to the team, I'm sure Kyosuke-san will be okay with it.'

'I can't,' Shinji replied feeling worse than ever, 'I…'

'Guys,' Masato said, 'leave him alone, if he could, he would have returned to the team and you know it.'

'That's true,' Eiji agreed. Just then, he saw his girlfriend Yayoi waving at him and he said, 'I've got to go.'

Watching in that direction made him notice that the Golden Arrows leader had locked himself inside his car and that he seemed to be talking to someone, probably his brother. Meanwhile Kizuna was talking to a very worried looking Ryoko. Her best friend Yayoi was also trying to make her feel better and she had called Eiji so that he could try to help keeping Ryoko distracted.

'Guys,' Shinji asked all of a sudden, 'Akito's still hurt, isn't he?'

No one answered.

'Guys, I know he can't be alright, not after that crash,' Shinji insisted.

'We're not sure,' Izawa replied, 'he hasn't told us anything but we too think that he can't be recovered yet.'

'Aren't you worried?' Shinji asked them.

'Of course we are,' Masato replied, 'but that stupid…I mean, Junya…'

'It's okay,' Shinji interrupted him, 'even I know that he can be rather idiotic sometimes.'

'It's a miracle you put up with him at all,' Kei said.

'He's not that bad,' Shinji countered, 'he has a lot of positive points, it's just that he's good at hiding them.'

'Very good it seems,' Masato said before he could help himself.

'Yeah,' Shinji admitted, 'but I'll always be grateful for what he did for me, if it hadn't been because of him…'

'Speaking of that,' Shige said, 'how's your father these days?'

'No idea,' Shinji replied looking very sad, 'he left the community and I haven't heard from him since.'

'Ouch,' Yuta said wincing.

'We're sorry to hear that,' Masato added.

'Yeah,' Shinji replied, 'I somehow knew that it would happen. But it's okay, I think I'm better off without him.'

'That's good,' Kei said, 'but you're not alone, remember that.'

'I know,' Shinji replied.

'And I'm not talking about that idiot you live with,' Kei continued, 'we're also here for whatever you need.'

'Thanks,' an emotional Shinji said.

'Hey!' Shige and Yuta exclaimed at the same time passing their arm around him, 'that's what friends are for!'

Shinji fought the urge to disentangle from them then, giving up, he sighed and returned their smile.

A few minutes later, someone announced that the race was over. Weirdly enough, no one bothered to report who had won and they were all left in the dark for several minutes until they heard a couple of engines driving up the road. A few moments later, they saw the headlights of Junya's S18 followed by the RZ-1. The V-86 was nowhere to be seen.

'Where's Akito?' Shinji heard Ryoko asking looking, if possible, even more worried.

The answer to her question presented itself when, for some reason, Junya helped a very weak looking Akito climb out of the Silvia. Seisuke also ran towards him leaving his Mazda with the door wide open and an instant later, every member of the Golden Arrows gathered around the injured racer allowing Kyosuke to speak first.

'What happened?'

'He won,' Seisuke announced but no one cheered.

Instead, Ryoko walked to Akito looking sick with concern, she then glared at Junya and narrowing her eyes she hissed:

'What did you do to him?'

'It's not his fault,' Akito replied with a pained voice, 'well, it's not entirely his fault.'

'Baby…' she started.

'Guys,' he interrupted her trying to stand up a little straighter, 'I need to ask you for a big favour.'

'Akito, not now,' Seisuke said, 'I know you said no hospitals but I need to…'

'It can wait,' he said sounding even weaker, 'I need to do this first.'

'Akito...' Junya finally found his voice.

Ignoring him, Akito glanced up at everyone while holding his shoulder as tightly as he could. It was then when Shinji saw that the younger guy was sweating quite heavily, he also looked flustered and feverish. Shinji didn't need Seisuke's knowledge to know that Akito needed medical help quickly. Instead, the young racer bowed as low as he possibly could and if that hadn't shocked everyone badly enough, it did what he said next:

'As a favour to me, can you please accept Junya and Shinji back into the team?'

Everyone went mute.

'Please guys,' Akito insisted with a slightly shaky voice, 'accept them back into the team.'

'Akito,' Kyosuke said sounding really worried, 'we can talk about this later, I…'

'No,' Akito interrupted him, he was still bowing and didn't look like he was going to get up.

'Akito,' Junya asked him sounding fairly concerned too, 'you don't need to do this.'

'I do,' Akito said and to everyone's relief, he now got up but the sudden move made him sway visibly.

'Whoa!' Seisuke exclaimed trying to keep his best friend upright.

'Akito,' Kyosuke then said, 'please let us take care of you, we'll decide this later, I promise.'

'No,' Akito insisted, 'I want this settled now, please, Kazuya's coming back in two weeks. I want him to find the whole team when he does. Please…Kyosuke…guys…I…I really…we need this…'

His voice trailed a bit and seeing that Akito wasn't going to quit until he got what he wanted, Kyosuke gave up and nodded.

'Alright,' he announced, 'Junya and Shinji can both come back into the team. Providing that Junya promises that he'll never cause the sort of problems he caused before and after he left this team, if he does, I'm prepared to give him one last chance.'

'What…do…you say?' Akito managed to ask him.

'I swear, no more trouble,' Junya replied firmly.

'You?' Akito asked looking at Shinji.

'Of course,' he replied, 'Akito, please, you need to…'

Shinji never finished saying what he thought Akito needed because, right at that moment, the guy closed his eyes and collapsed. He would have fallen onto the ground if it wasn't because both Junya and Seisuke rushed to get hold of him before that happened. Kyosuke then helped his younger brother carry Akito to the white RZ-1 while a very pale Ryoko climbed in sitting on its back seat. A few moments later, Seisuke and Ryoko were gone taking an unconscious Akito with them.

'That guy is mental,' Junya said earning himself several death glares, seeing that, he added hastily, 'hey, I meant that in the best possible way!'

'Are you sure?' Kyosuke demanded.

'Yes, I am,' Junya said, 'after seeing what that kid...no…that awesome racer did during our battle. He's really hurt, isn't he?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'he's got a titanium nail holding his shoulder together.'

'What?' Junya exclaimed feeling sick, 'oh God.'

'Yeah,' Kizuna said sounding very serious, 'I hope you can now begin to respect him for what he is.'

'I think he respects him already,' Shinji added, 'don't you Junya-san?'

'I do,' Junya admitted, 'I might be a little too late but, I think I finally see what you guys see in him.'

'Better late than never,' Eiji said flippantly.

'He really is what you guys always said about him,' Junya added.

'What?' Kyosuke asked him.

'He's our little racing genius,' Junya replied.

'He is,' Izawa said, 'never forget that.'

'I won't,' Junya promised, 'after what I've seen him doing tonight, I don't think I'll forget this race in my whole life.'

Hearing him saying this made Shinji feel even happier than the day when Junya had asked him to come and live with him. Yet again, it was something Junya said that changed his life and, yet again, it was a change for the better. As he finished this thought, he saw Kyosuke approaching them with something in his hands.

'Here,' he said, 'put them on so we can show Akito that you're back in the team.'

'Thank you,' Shinji and Junya said taking the Golden Arrows stickers from him.

'Welcome back to the Golden Arrows,' Kyosuke said.

'It's good to be back,' Shinji dared to say while Junya nodded.

'Now,' Kyosuke said, 'if you two excuse me, 'I need to go and see how's our little racing genius.'

A few instants later, twelve of the sixteen members of the Golden Arrows followed their leader down Mt Akina, with Kizuna dropping Yayoi by the V-86 so that she could do her best to drive Akito's car back to its owner's house. Neither Junya nor Shinji would see Akito again until a couple of weeks later when Kazuya returned to Japan, this time for good.

That evening, when they drove to the Golden Arrows meeting point at Mt Akagi, they saw that the V-86 was parked next to the two RZ-1s. Shinji had barely parked his car when he saw Junya walking towards Akito. Fearing that Junya would return to his old ways, he hurried to get out of the Honda.

'Hey, Akito,' Junya said using the same kind tone of voice Shinji had heard often, 'how are you feeling?'

'I'm alright,' Akito replied.

'Will you be able to come with us to Hakone next week?' Junya asked him.

'Probably,' Akito replied, 'why, do you have a problem with that?'

'Not at all,' Junya said, 'I just wanted to be sure our team will have its best elements.'

'Junya,' Kazuya said sounding worried, 'are _you_ okay?'

'I am,' Junya replied, 'I've never been better.'

'Alright…'

'Ah,' Junya gasped, 'one more thing,' he added looking at Akito, 'I'm really sorry for…well, for everything.'

Akito could have not looked anymore stunned but, recovering fast, he smiled at Junya and said:

'Apology accepted.'

'I have an idea,' Kizuna said, 'since it's the sixteen of us again, why don't we go up for a drive together?'

'You just read my mind,' Kyosuke told her.

'I don't think I want to do that,' Kizuna said laughing at him.

'Neither do I,' Seisuke added looking slightly freaked out.

Seeing that Kyosuke started getting all too serious again, Akito spoke up and said:

'Let's see if any you guys can catch me!'

Before they could reply, he was inside his car and an instant later, he took off with the sort of speed only a professional racer could accomplish. In spite of that, all fifteen racers jumped into their cars and, just then, an impromptu race started, a race to see who, among all of them, would manage to catch up with Akito.

Needless to say, none of them did.

But it didn't matter, they were the Golden Arrows and they were together again.

Ready to take on whoever would challenge their place as one of the top teams in Kanto.

_Continues in: Programmed Lives - Fifth Stage_


	67. Extra Notes & Character List

Dear readers,

if you're reading this, it means that you somehow got through the whole series and you're now wondering what I'm going to torture you with next. Am I right?

The answer to this question is simple: after thinking about it very carefully, I think I'm going to wait until Shigeno-sensei ends that epic race he's currently drawing, I'm talking about the one where Ryosuke is racing someone from his past, before he was the White Comet or he even thought of rescuing that little rascal Keisuke and found the Red Suns with him. The reason why I want to wait until the race ends is because I'd like to revisit the time before Initial D started and I want to have the full picture of what happened back then before I do. I know that this has been done before and I hope that those authors who have related works in progress will forgive me but I've always wanted to explore Ryosuke's past and I think that I'm finally ready to do that now. Also because I feel that it will probably be easier to find information on cars from the eighties and nineties than it was finding data on cars built in the sixties and seventies, not to mention the fact that I won't have to invent a single car since I will no longer be writing about the future.

Your next question might be, if Sanae is going to wait, what is she going to do while Shigeno-sensei works on his epic race?

Easy, I want to go through my other Initial D stories, correct mistakes and change a few things that I know now but that I didn't when I created the series four years ago. I hope that it'll take me long enough for said epic race to finish but if it's not, then I'll still have the time to build up the story's general plot, do the research I need to do and maybe even write the first few chapters of the story. I'm sure I'm not the only Initial D fan who hopes that Shigeno-sensei will indeed hurry up and move on to the next part of Project D's commitments.

Another thing I wanted to say before I move on to the real important part of this rant. Included below, you'll find the list of the members of the Golden Arrows and under that, you'll see the complete list of characters I used for this story in order of appearance. The reason why I'm doing this is that if you ever feel mentally disturbed enough to want to use any of them for one of your own stories, you're free to use them (except Kizuna Ethridge who was, is and will always be SouthSideSlider's property, if you love her as much as I do, please ask him permission first!) the only thing I want to ask you is that you somehow let me know so that I can read the story, okay? And please treat them well, I love every single one of them!

And now, this is the bit that I really wanted to get to: I'd like to thank from the bottom of my heart all of those people who have been with me from the start, to those who joined the journey at some point and to those who just recently started reading my stories and have been kind enough to let me know through a review, an email or a PM. All of you awesome people, please know that it was your continued support, your words of advice and just the fact that you were there who made it possible for me to carry on writing so, thank you very much. This whole series exists because of you. (Although I take full responsibility for any temporary or permanent disability it might cause. That, is entirely my own fault! ^_^)

Much love to you all and thank you for reading,

Sanae.

* * *

**GOLDEN ARROWS MEMBERS:**

Foundation Date: Februrary 2021

Home Course: Mt Akagi's Pass

* * *

Leader:

Name: Kyosuke Takahashi

Kanji: 恭介高橋

Car: 2020 Yellow Mazda RZ-1 (SF3Z)

Birthdate: January 3rd 2002

Join Date: February 2021

Residence: Maebashi

Occupation: 4th Year Automotive Engineering Student

Height/Weight: 188/69

Hair/Eyes: Bleached Spikes/Dark Brown

* * *

Members:

Name: Seisuke Takahashi

Kanji: 成介高橋

Car: 2021 White Mazda RZ-1 (SF3Z)

Birthdate: March 1st 2003

Join Date: March 2021

Residence: Maebashi

Occupation: 3rd Year Medical School Student

Height/Weight: 187/67

Hair/Eyes: Short-ish Black/Dark Brown

* * *

Name: Akito Fujiwara

Kanji: 秋人藤原

Car: 2023 Panda Toyota V-86 (AE86V)

Birthdate: October 21st 2005

Join Date: October 2023

Residence: Shibukawa

Occupation: 3rd Year High School Student/Professional GP2 Driver

Height/Weight: 172/51

Hair/Eyes: Short-ish Dark Brown/Brown

* * *

Name: Junya Shimano

Kanji: 順也島野

Car: 2019 Light Blue Nissan Silvia NISMO Edition (S18N)

Birthdate: November 7th 2000

Join Date: Februrary 2021

Residence: Maebashi

Occupation: Assistant Manager at a Photography Studio

Height/Weight: 180/70

Hair/Eyes: Short Black/Black

* * *

Name: Kazuya Kameyama

Kanji: 和也亀山

Car: 2020 Red Honda Civic Type R (GD4)

Birthdate: April 15th 2001

Join Date: February 2021

Residence: Maebashi

Occupation: 4th Year Philosophy Politics Economics Student

Height/Weight: 176/64

Hair/Eyes: Short Brown/Brown

* * *

Name: Kizuna Ethridge

Kanji: 絆エスリシ

Car: 2005 Dark Grey Nissan 350Z (Z33)

Birthdate: May 20th 2002

Join Date: March 2021

Residence: Maebashi

Occupation: 3rd Year Automotive Engineering Student

Height/Weight: 175/51

Hair/Eyes: Long Wavy Dark Blonde/Dark Grey

* * *

Name: Daichi Izawa

Kanji: 大地井沢

Car: 1st/2019 Dark Grey Toyota Vera TRD (V40E) 2nd/ 2007 Dark Grey Honda Integra Type R (DC5)

Birthdate: June 22nd 2002

Join Date: March 2021

Residence: Tamamura

Occupation: Internet Marketing Company Office Clerk

Height/Weight: 177/61

Hair/Eyes: Short Black/Brown

* * *

Name: Masato Ikeda

Kanji: 正人池田

Car: 2020 Red Toyota Vera TRD (V40E)

Birthdate: May 4th 2002

Join Date: April 2021

Residence: Isesaki

Occupation: 3rd Year Education Science Student

Height/Weight: 185/67

Hair/Eyes: Short Brown/Brown

* * *

Name: Eiji Watanabe

Kanji: 英二渡辺

Car: 2017 Black Honda NSX Mugen RR (C32R)

Birthdate: February 7th 2002

Join Date: April 2021

Residence: Isesaki

Occupation: 3rd Year History of Art Student

Height/Weight: 181/70

Hair/Eyes: Short-ish Black/Brown

* * *

Name: Kei Kitamura

Kanji: 恵北村

Car: 2010 White Mitsubish Lancer EVO X (CZ4A)

Birthdate: July 3rd 2002

Join Date: April 2021

Residence: Isesaki

Occupation: 3rd Year Political Science Student

Height/Weight: 179/68

Hair/Eyes: Short Black/Brown

* * *

Name: Yuta Takaki

Kanji: 悠太高木

Car: 2017 Light Green Nissan Silvia (S17)

Birthdate: November 28th 2002

Join Date: April 2021

Residence: Isesaki

Occupation: 3rd Year Astronomy Student

Height/Weight: 177/53

Hair/Eyes: Short-ish Black/Brown

* * *

Name: Shuji Arata

Kanji: 修二新田

Car: 2012 Blue Subaru Legacy (BT5)

Birthdate: April 30th 2001

Join Date: June 2021

Residence: Ota

Occupation: Apprentice at Subaru Design Department

Height/Weight: 181/67

Hair/Eyes: Short Brown/Brown

* * *

Name: Shigeru Noda

Kanji: 茂 野田

Car: 2012 Blue Subaru Legacy (BT5)

Birthdate: March 6th 2003

Join Date: June 2021

Residence: Ota

Occupation: 2nd Year Astronomy Student

Height/Weight: 180/60

Hair/Eyes: Short White/Brown

* * *

Name: Tatsuya Yamato

Kanji: 竜也大和

Car: 2012 Blue Subaru Legacy (BT5)

Birthdate: January 11th 2003

Join Date: June 2021

Residence: Ota

Occupation: 2nd Year Graphic Design Student

Height/Weight: 178/65

Hair/Eyes: Spiky Black/Dark Brown

* * *

Name: Shinji Sakura

Kanji: 真二菊

Car: 1st/ 2022 Yellow Honda Beat Kei-Car (PK4-100) - 2nd/ 2014 Silver Honda Accord Coupe (CU2)

Birthdate: September 3rd 2003

Join Date: June 2022

Residence: Maebashi

Occupation: Junior Employee at Photography Studio

Height/Weight: 169/55

Hair/Eyes: Short Mousy Brown/Brown

* * *

Name: Jun Morioka

Kanji: 潤森岡

Car: 2020 Blue Toyota MR3 Roadster (ZZW33)

Birthdate: July 3rd 2003

Join Date: August 2023

Residence: Isobe

Occupation: Onsen General Manager (In-Training)

Height/Weight: 182/68

Hair/Eyes: Short Brown/Brown

* * *

Official Supporters:

Name: Ryoko Takahashi

Kanji: 良子高橋

Car: 2023 Red Mazda MX7 Roadster (ND23)

Birthdate: September 15th 2005

Join Date: n/a

Residence: Maebashi

Occupation: 3rd Year High School Student

Height/Weight: 156/37

Hair/Eyes: Long Brown/Brown

* * *

Name: Yayoi Akanishi

Kanji: 彌生赤西

Car: n/a

Birthdate: June 2nd 2005

Join Date: n/a

Residence: Maebashi

Occupation: 3rd Year High School Student

Height/Weight: 165/43

Hair/Eyes: Curly Brown/Brown

* * *

Name: Kaori Kurosawa

Kanji: 圭織黒沢

Car: n/a

Birthdate: November 9th 2002

Join Date: n/a

Residence: Maebashi

Occupation: 3rd Year Foreign Languages Student

Height/Weight: 163/39

Hair/Eyes: Mid-Length Brown/Brown

* * *

**Full Character List: (In Order of Appearance):**

* * *

§ - Prol - Ethridge Kizuna - 2005 Dark Grey Nissan 350Z (Z33) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - Prol - Ethridge Josh - n/a - Kizuna's Uncle

* * *

§ - Prol - Ethidge Salina - n/a - Kizuna's Mother

* * *

§ - ch1 - Suzuki Masashi - n/a - Ex Akina Firebolts Leader, friend of Bunta and Yuuichi

* * *

§ - ch1 - Ethridge Kenneth - n/a - Kizuna's Father (D)

* * *

§ - ch2 - Fujiwara Bunta - 90's Electric Blue Subaru Impreza (GC8) - Legendary Ex-Racer, Tofumaker

* * *

§ - ch3 - Nakazato Taro - 2020 Dark Black Mitsubishi EVO X-3 (EZ6B) - Myogi Devils Leader

* * *

§ - ch3 - Takahashi Kyosuke - 2020 Yellow Mazda RZ-1 (SF3Z) - Golden Arrows Leader

* * *

§ - ch3 - Takahashi Seisuke - 2021 White Mazda RZ-1 (SF3Z) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch3 - Kameyama Kazuya - 2020 Red Honda Civic Type R (GD4) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch3 - Shimano Junya - 2019 L/blue Nissan Silvia NISMO (S18) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch3 - Izawa Daichi - 2007 Dark Grey Honda Integra Type R (DC5) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch4 - Evil Trio - n/a - Remained Unnamed

* * *

§ - ch4 - Takahashi Keisuke - 90's Yellow Mazda RX-7 (FD3S) - Owner of Takahashi Motorsports Centre

* * *

§ - ch4 - Fujiwara Takumi - 1983 Panda Toyota Sprinter Trueno (AE86) - Instructor at Takahashi Motorsports Centre

* * *

§ - ch4 - Fujiwara Akito - 2023 Panda Toyota V-86 (AE86V) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch4 - Takahashi Ryoko - 2023 Red Mazda MX7 Roadster (ND23) - Akito's Girlfriend, Kyosuke and Seisuke's cousin

* * *

§ - ch4 - Kurosawa Kaori - n/a - Seisuke's Girlfriend

* * *

§ - ch5 - Kameyama Masaki - n/a - Kazuya's Father, Pref. Governor

* * *

§ - ch5 - Ikeda Masato - 2021 Red Toyota Vera TRD (V40E) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch5 - Watanabe Eiji - 2020 Black Honda NSX Mugen RR (C32R) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch5 - Kitamura Kei - 2010 White Mitsubishi EVO X (CZ4A) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch5 - Takaki Yuta - 2017 L/Green Nissan Silvia (S17) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch8 - Takahashi Akiko - n/a - Owner of Arakawa Takahashi Medical Group

* * *

§ - ch8 - Takahashi Ryosuke - 90's White Mazda RX-7 (FC3S) - Owner of Arakawa Takahashi Medical Group

* * *

§ - ch11 - Hirota Yasuo - 2016 White Honda Civic Type R (GD2) - Nagano Alliance Leader

* * *

§ - ch11 - Matsushita Jin - 2021 Black Subaru Impreza GR (SG9R) - Nagano Alliance Member

* * *

§ - ch13 - Fujiwara Natsuki - Nissan Micra - Akito's Adoptive Mother

* * *

§ - ch13 - Fujiwara Haruko - n/a - Currently competing in Junior Karting Champ

* * *

§ - ch14 - Kobayashi Kugo - 2020 Silver Nissan GTR (R36) - Myogi Devils Member

* * *

§ - ch14 - Morioka Jun - 2019 Blue Toyota MR3 (ZZW33) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch15 - Kubota Hiroyuki - 2018 Green Mazda MX7 (ND18) - Nagano Alliance Member

* * *

§ - ch16 - Takahashi Kyoko - n/a - Owner Takahashi Motorsports Centre

* * *

§ - ch21 - Kondo Isamu - 2016 White Mitsubishi Eclipse (5GA) - Irohazaka Team Leader

* * *

§ - ch21 - Miyazaki Ayumi - 2008 Red Mazda RX-8 - Irohazaka Team Member

* * *

§ - ch22 - Arata Shuji - 2012 Blue Subaru Legacy (BT5) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch22 - Yamato Tatsuya - 2012 Blue Subaru Legacy (BT5) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch22 - Noda Shigeru - 2012 Blue Subaru Legacy (BT5) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch26 - Tanaka Takayuki - n/a - PIAA-Tanaka Team Manager

* * *

§ - ch26 - Go Jito - n/a - Ex-Driver for PIAA-Tanaka Team

* * *

§ - ch28 - Ichihara Sae - 2020 Red Mazda RZ-1 (SF3Z) - Typhoon Tigers Leader

* * *

§ - ch29 - Ichihara Ren - 2019 Silver Honda S3000 (BP2) - Typhoon Tigers Member

* * *

§ - ch30 - Guelfi Andrea - n/a - Toda Racing F3/ADDAX GP2

* * *

§ - ch30 - Taguchi Hideki - n/a - Team TOMs F3

* * *

§ - ch30 - Schulz Marko - n/a - Team TOMs F3

* * *

§ - ch30 - Minamoto Yukio - n/a - Avangarde Racing F3

* * *

§ - ch31 - Kawamura Naoki - n/a - NOW MOTORSPORTS F3

* * *

§ - ch34 - Doctor Nakayama - n/a - Doctor at the Okayama Circuit

* * *

§ - ch35 - Fujikawa Mitsuki - 2022 Black Mitsubishi Zero GTO (GT1Z) - Shomaru Team Leader

* * *

§ - ch36 - Uchiyama Nami - n/a - Kei's Biological Mother

* * *

§ - ch39 - Matsui Mika - n/a - Eiji's Ex-Girlfriend

* * *

§ - ch41 - Sakura Shinji - 2022 Yellow Honda Beat Kei-Car (PK4-100) - Golden Arrows Member

* * *

§ - ch42 - Doctor Aiba - n/a - Doctor at the Arakawa Hospital

* * *

§ - ch43 - Sakai Sho - 2021 Red Honda Civic Type R (GD4) - Tōdō Juku Racing School

* * *

§ - ch44 - Imai Miki - 2017 Nissan GTR (R35) - Tōdō Juku Racing School

* * *

§ - ch46 - Tomori - n/a - Fuji TV Journalist

* * *

§ - ch49 - Akanishi Yayoi - n/a - Ryoko's Best Friend, Eiji's Girlfriend

* * *

§ - ch50 - Kanzaki Takeru - 20XX Mitsubishi EVO X-4 Prototype - Mitsubishi Test Driver

* * *

§ - ch54 - Doctor Sumiyoshi - n/a - Doctor at the Arakawa Hospital

* * *

§ - ch59 - Fernandez Ruben - n/a - PIAA-Tanaka GP2 Racer (Akito's Team Mate)

* * *

§ - ch60 - Aoi Michiru - 2011 Silver Nissan 370 (Z34) - Kasuo Pass Racer


End file.
